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What should I do about low 'memory' on my recovery drive?

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Summary: Many manufacturers create a recovery drive or partition on your hard disk. Windows may warn you about low disk space on it. I'll look at wWhat to do?

I have HP vista pavilion, running home premium (about 6 months old). The computer displayed a low memory on drive "D" recovery. I stayed on the phone with a tech rep two hours trying to get this explained. Showed I had not done a "backup". Of all the computers I have used I have never received this notification. The tech set my computer to do backup every month. Is this a "must"? Was instructed to insert a disc every first of the month. What is the purpose of doing this and is it necessary? As to the disk, what kind should I use?

There are several misunderstandings in this question, and it sounds like the support technician certainly didn't help. But the misunderstandings are so common that I really wanted to take an opportunity to clear them up if I can.

First, a disk drive does not run low on memory, it runs out of space. Yes, while disks can be used to "remember" things - a kind of memory I suppose - when applied to computers the term memory specifically refers to the RAM memory installed in your computer. Hard disks are something else entirely.

I know it sounds like I'm being very nit-picky, and I suppose I am. The problem is that particularly when it comes to computers, using the correct terminology is extremely important. For example, if you tell a technician that you think you're running out of memory when you really mean that you're running out of disk space then it's likely that you're not going to get the help you need to fix your problem.

Secondly, if drive "D" has been set up as a recovery drive (which is quite common these days), you should simply never use it. Period. You would use it only as part of actually performing a recovery.

Now, there may be some confusion since Windows may start warning you that the drive is close to full. Well, a recovery drive D will almost always be close to full, and that's ok. It has a bunch of recovery information on it and it doesn't need any more room because you should never use it for anything else. As long as you're not using it for anything else, you can simply ignore the low space warnings for a recovery drive.

"... if drive "D" has been set up as a recovery drive ... you should simply never use it."

The one caveat I'll throw out here is that if you are using your recovery drive for something, you may quickly run out of space on the drive and some programs may fail to work or complete their tasks properly. I have no way of knowing if that's the case on your system, but it's something to keep an eye on. If you experience failures in certain programs, make sure that they're not saving files to your recovery drive.

Lastly, I have no idea how or why backing up came into your conversation. Backing up isn't related to anything we've discussed so far.

That being said, the technician is correct: everyone should backup regularly, or you are at risk of losing all of the information on your computer. Occasionally things break, and when they break occasionally all the data on your computer will be lost. It really is that simple.

So yes, in my opinion, backing up is a must.

Backing up is more than just putting a disk in your computer once a month. It does require that you run backup software of some sort, and that the software is configured to properly copy the data you care about to some location that is not on your computer: a CD or DVD, an external hard drive, another computer that's on your local network, whatever works for you. Exactly what you'll need will depend on the kind of backup program you'd run and how much effort you want to put into it. I typically recommend getting an external hard drive and software that backs up automatically for you every night.

My previous article What backup program should I use? has more information on backing up.

My guess is that the technician mentioned backing up not as a solution to any problem you might be experiencing, but simply because it is important and could help you recover from more serious problems you might experience in the future.

Related:

Article 12118 | Posted December 24, 2007

Recent Comments

I too am frustrated because I think I just backed up files mistakingly in the recovery "D" drive also. It wouldn't let me unclick it, and I thought I knew what I was doing. Now I don't know how to undo it either. Do you think it's ok or what should be done??

Posted by: Tracy at February 3, 2008 12:03 AM

I have a friend that has an HP Pavillion 061 with a D: \ Drive set as a recovery Drive. It showed that it had about 100 GB's free space on it. Before I realized my mistake I copied about 5 mb's of MP3's to that drive. I erased the Mp3's but he is now getting a low disc space message on that drive.

Is there anything I can do to correct this?

Posted by: Michael Brooks at February 4, 2008 08:35 AM

Mr. Ask Leo

Just about every owner of a HP Vista computer will get a message that prompts low memory or low disk space on drive d: recovery. You click on the prompt and are asks if you would like to clean the drive to make more space. Then you are given a selection of items to clean. Problem is that next to each choice the prompt states 0 files. You then click on each choice and click OK. But it will prompt you again and again. I have 5 of HP's with Vista and they all do it to some degree, some yo yo at HP did not allow enough space on the recovery partition, Vista has a unknown variable for determining when a disk is full, if you have an extra gigabit of unused space, this prompt will not present itself. I have used Seagate Disk Wizard to mirror on drive to another, this program allows you to chance partition size. You give a little more space to drive D: Recovery and you are no longer prompted with this message.

Now the question at hand is how is this problem addressed without having to install a new drive with Disk Wizard?

Posted by: Bob Harkness at March 1, 2008 03:57 PM

D drive shows less space warning because Windows Backup utility keeeps backing up files to it. Change the back up location to either an external drive or DVDRW.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c00859515&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Posted by: Santo at March 4, 2008 05:24 PM

Leo, I am a research specialist of HP working on HP desktop issues. You gotta check this link. The tech must not have misunderstood the customer, though he used the wrong term as memory. He has set up the back up only for the convenience of the customer. The D drive runs outta space, only because, the back up files of vista get stored over there, by default. we need to delete the baked up files and change the back up path to fix the issue, though setting up back up is entirely up to the user. Please refer to this link for more and detailed info.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c00859515&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N350

Cheers!
Sandeep

Posted by: Sandeep Sarangi at April 21, 2008 07:22 PM

I went to programs and removed drive (d) i have had no probs since doing this my laptop is an HP COMPAQ 6720S

Posted by: ROSS at May 20, 2008 05:19 AM

If you remove drive (d) please make shore you have your back up disks as you can not use f11 no more then you can allways restore if you want

Posted by: ROSS at May 20, 2008 05:27 AM

I DID A FORMAT OF DRIVE (D) IT SEEMS TO WORK OK SO I CAN STILL USE F11 AND RESTORE NOW . WINDOWS IS ON C .I did this in the end .As long as you have your disks you are safe to try

Posted by: ross at May 20, 2008 04:41 PM

hi i brought a philips 512MB, i put my songs on then after a while i deleted them all so i can put new ones on ive tried puttin new ones on and i only have 443MB and there are no songs on the mp3.

Posted by: Liam at June 23, 2008 06:25 AM

Hey, I recently bought a Hp labtop its a Pavilion entertainment pc and so I was wondering if it is safe to delete some files/stuff on the recovery drive to clear up space since it says its full and which files can I delete so that it doesn't affect my main drive. Last time I tried it I ended up losing my recent files.

Posted by: Altec at September 3, 2008 06:57 AM

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