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Author Topic: My recovery D: drive is almost full, what?! Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 05-06-2008 09:31 PM                        A bit ago, I scheduled weekly back ups of my computer. Well poking around today I noticed that the D: drive is almost full to capacity. Is there a way I can delete everything thats on it and start a new backup point? I'm running Vista on a Dell notebook 1505 if that helps any.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-06-2008 10:22 PM                        Mmm, well if you literally want to quickly erase everything* on Drive D:, right-click on that drive in My Computer (or whatever the heck Vista calls it now ) and select "Format..." and do a Quick Format. Although being Vista, it might want you to have some elevated admin privileges to do that. Sorry, my Vista experience is still fairly limited. * Yes I know a Windows format doesn't erase the files, just initializes the file system.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-06-2008 10:29 PM                     ( delete VISTA and put in a REAL operating system called XP ..j/k..) Get some space cleared up on that drive...  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-06-2008 11:56 PM                     Thats one of the really nice feature about Windows Home Server Software... aside from the remote access to it's server and all your home computers... from anywhere literally. When it does an automatic backup it only ads in the changes you made that day to the existing data on your local drives... it a sense it backs up cumulatively and it aso lets you restore a complete bungled up hard drive on any remote or laptop in just a few minutes with data taken from the last backup... including he OS! This way it doesn't keep accumulating many complete backups and the resultant huge amounts of data hat fill hard drives. You may want to check it out...  |  IP: Logged Charles Greenlee Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 801 From: Savannah, Ga, U.S. Registered: Jun 2006 posted 05-07-2008 04:34 AM                        Vista . I run windows 2003. Its basically XP, for servers. 99.9% of the drivers are the same, 99% of XP sofware works on it. Like I said it is an updated XP for servers. Had to have it on my old Mobo, since it was a Dual Xeon serverboard. Wouldn't run non-server OSes. Ran Linux really well too. Go SMP.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-07-2008 06:32 AM                        quote: Although being Vista, it might want you to have some elevated admin privileges to do that [format a hard drive volume]. As with XP, you need to have administrator rights. There are two ways this can be done: 1. Log in as an administrator, if the username you use routinely is not an administrator ID. 2. Right-click on Windows Explorer and select 'run as administrator' from the menu. It'll then ask you for the password. Once it opens, Windows Explorer will then behave as if you're logged on as an administrator, while all other programs will continue to run under your normal ID. You will be able to format a hard drive volume this way.  |  IP: Logged Michael Moore Expert Film Handler Posts: 188 From: Dover, DE / USA Registered: Jun 2006 posted 05-10-2008 08:23 PM                        is this Drive D a partition of Drive C? If so you may have a problem getting it to format in Vista. If dell is not giving you a Restore Disc and putting it in a partition you will need to make a restore disc first then go in and do a fresh install of vista and remove that D partition. That is if this is what you are looking to do. Mike  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-10-2008 10:12 PM                     quote: Charles Greenlee I run windows 2003. Its basically XP, for servers 2003 Server platform actually a lot more stable and even more bullett proof than good ole XP is. "Windows Home Server" is a program running on top of W-2003 Server which makes it also pretty darn stable but more user friendly for the wife. Straight ole 2003 Server is much more difficult for folks to grasp if they even ever can. The Windows "Home Server" software still has a few known bugs in it... it IS brand new however there is an nupgraaded version on the way to fix the two known problems.... they are saying that the new version will only be 64 bit and will then obviously only run on 64 bit capable servers. I recently upgraded to a used Dell 2650 for a mere pittance on E-Bay. My older Dell 2450 which is still a decent server is available for free if anyone wants to pay the shipping on it... about 65 lbs boxed! Mark  |  IP: Logged Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 05-11-2008 01:14 AM                        I just want to delete everything on the damn D: drive and start a new. What good does formating it do? As you can tell, I'm one of the few people under the age of 30 that really doesn't know the in's and out's of computers very well (or at least Vista)  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 05-11-2008 04:20 AM                     quote: Michael Moore is this Drive D a partition of Drive C? I'm gonna answer for her. The answer is "no." How can I know this? Because a windows "drive" is a partition and as such you can't have a partition of a partition. quote: Allison Parsons I just want to delete everything on the damn D: drive and start a new. What good does formating it do? Formatting it does exactly what you want. If you do a "quick format" like mentioned earlier it resets the file system so that it'll be empty to the operating system. It's called "quick" because this type of format takes almost no time since it doesn't actually physically erase the data on the disk (it just instead tells the OS that every part of the drive is empty). And a traditional (not-quick) format will erase the partition and reset the file system but this'll take much longer and really isn't needed. edit: Furthermore, even if all you did was delete the partition with fdisk or some similar utility, windows would still have to format the partition for you before you could use the partition. And this would result in the same thing as the quick format.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-11-2008 06:45 AM                        Just to add something to Chris' explanation. It's possible to divide a single hard drive into two or more separate spaces, which the operating system treats as separate drives, each with their own drive letter. Each space is called a partition. Once a partition is formatted and in use by the computer, the formatted space is called a volume. I'm guessing that Allison has one physical hard drive in her computer, which has been divided up into two spaces (partitions), which have then been formatted as volumes called C: and D:. Just to be confusing, it's also possible to have two or more physical hard drives in your computer, each of which only has one partition/volume. To see what's what (in either XP or Vista) run start - programs - administrative tools - computer management. You'll need to run it as an administrator (see my post above) if you want to change anything. Once this program is open, click on 'Disk Management'. That will then show you a graphical diagram of all the hard drives in (or connected to) your computer, and how they are partitioned and formatted. By right-clicking on a volume or area of empty space, you can then reformat it, change its drive letter and various other things. But the short answer to your question is like Chris said. Formatting D: will nuke everything that's on it. There's an area at the start of the volume which contains information about where all the files are physically located on it. Quick formatting deletes the data in this area - it's like tearing the contents page or the index out of a book. Full formatting actually deletes the data itself, replacing it all with zeros. Software does exist which can manually go through the contents of a disc and recover files which are still there but no longer referred to in the 'index' section of a disc. You only need to do a full format if: 1. There's a security issue - for example if you're about to sell your old computer on Ebay and want to make damn sure that your personal data is all gone from it. 2. If you suspect that there may be an error on the drive, full formatting will also establish whether there is or not (because if there's a physical problem, Windows will give you an error message). For this reason I tend to full format brand new HDDs before using them for the first time, to make sure that if there is a defect on them, I can return them while still under warranty. 3. If you want to change the type of file system for the volume, e.g. change a FAT drive to NTSC. Otherwise, quick formatting is all you need to do.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 05-11-2008 10:40 AM                     The confusion is that windows (even vista) refers to every partition that it can see and mount as a "Hard Disk Drive" even if the partitions aren't physical drives. And Leo means you'd choose NTFS. It would be kind of hard to format a partition as NTSC (the digital television transmission standard used here in the States).  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-11-2008 10:47 AM                     Ahhhhhh... Caught you there Chris. You indeed do know your computer stuff though... much better than I! NTSC is actully the current old color television standard. Means "Never The Same Color" to us old broadcasters. The new standard is ATSC... or probably "Always The Same Color" to todays young punk broadcasters that came up with this system.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 05-11-2008 12:36 PM                     Touche Obviously NTSC is analog. And I knew that too. I fail.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-11-2008 12:37 PM                        I think NTSC would work great for computer displays, if you want a clear, bright picture, but you can live with it being a bit fuzzy as the downside. But if you're willing to put up with a slightly dimmer picture that can flicker a bit, but need pin-sharp resolution, click on PAL...  |  IP: Logged

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