Recover Drive Almost Full, Froze three times

[kerrex_2006]

Recently, my D Drive, which is the File Recovery, is almost at it;s limit (onlt 833 MB out of 8.78 GB left) and I can't access the files in it, because HP Recovery Partition won't let me see the files or delete them.

I tried to burn them onto a disk, but when I tried to, my computer froze three times while burning, and only 2 gigs have been burned so far, and I don;t want it to freze on me again.

In short, what can I do to free up the space in my D drive without having to burn the data onto a disc, since HP won;t let me let into the folder?

My computer is an HP Media Center PC with an ACER monitor and Windows Vista, bought in July 2007.

[Bjs]

Start system ... keep tapping the F8 key till boot options appear > safe mode ... if you can get to them now, transfer copies of files to flash drive

or

Might want to try a live linux distro such as ubuntu > http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

[Krispy Kritter]

"File Recovery" would seem to indicate that it is simply a backup drive. If the primary drive is still functioning normally, then simply replace the defective drive and perform a new complete backup. No reason to waste time trying to recover the backup files when the originals are still fine.

[Ethlred]

HP has a recovery PARTITION not a recovery disk. Its not a backup. Its what the PC builders use instead of supplying a proper installation disk. At least I think thats whats going on.

He can't read it. Its full already. I bet he can't see it in Windows Explorer. Only in the disk manager. All symptoms of the hidden recovery partition.

Of course I could be full of it. I have never bought a PC only built them so I have never dealt with one of these marketing stupidities. They severely handicap the owners when there is a problem. 8.78GB seems large for a recovery partition. I have only seen numbers on one and it was the size of a single layer dvd.

If its what I think it is and you want to burn a disk from it you will at the least need a dual layer dvd. They're unreliable and cost a lot more than single layer disks.

[ahhaa]

What BJS said... this should be a standard post by now!
Any number of Linux LIVE CD distros will read and write NTFS files these days, while running from RAM (no changes/footprint on your hard drive). This is extremely handy for diagnosis & repair of software ailments- think of it like anesthesia in surgery.

What you need to do is remove files from the computer that are being backed up. (just removing the backups will only be temporary)
Alternately, you could install a larger hard drive, after confirming with HP support that they'd help you enlarge the D drive.
Clonezilla is a linux release that is smaller for downloading at 100 megs, and designed to do both these jobs.
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05185
Ubuntu is fine but makes for a large download if all you are doing is shedding files onto a USB drive. Mandriva is also excellent. http://distrowatch.com/

[redwudz]

I would have to agree with Ethlred on this. That's the Recovery Partition, not a separate drive:



This is from my laptop. But you should be able to back it up with possibly Safe Mode or a live Linux distro. But that won't solve the problem. But it shouldn't be full. How much room is left on the rest of the drive? (The 'C' partition?)

If that's a desktop PC and you only have the one hard drive, you might consider getting a second, larger hard drive and cloning the existing partitions to it, then enlarge the recovery partition.

I'm not sure how you might 'trim' down the recovery partition without wiping out your recovery files. It may be HP is storing restore points there and that's what's taking up the extra space. But I think the OS should be managing the size of the RP. I have about 1.8GB free on mine with a size of about 11GB.

You might check with HP for advice.