My Drive D, which is my backup disk, is too full, less than 15% available space, and therefore will not allow me to defragment. What can I do?1 person needs an answerI do too

My Drive D, which is my backup disk, is too full, less than 15% available space, and therefore will not allow me to defragment. What can I do?Delete some of the files. Or just go ahead and defragment despite the warning:A volume must have at least 15% free space for Disk Defragmenter to completely and adequately defragment it. Disk Defragmenter uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, Disk Defragmenter will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk. Reference

Sorry about that, Iam a novice on this forum, but I do have a similar problen to FlamingoRose. On my XP pc, I found a 16Gb file "MyIndex.Hash.gthr.Dir" hogging space that has not changed in two years. Can I safely remove it to gain enough space to complete the defrag? I do not use the Desktop Search program or MSN Search tool, so I am prepared to uninstal them but can not due to a missing Patch package.. I therefore cut the file from: C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settins\Application Data\Microsft\Desktop Search\Applications\RSApp\Projects\MyIndex\Save\MyIndex.Hash.gthr.Dir and saved it to an external HDD (just in case I need to put it back). I am currently running the defrag, now with enough space, hopefully to complete the process. Perhaps FR has a similar large file, that appears to do nothing, that can be removed as space creation. Now I wait to see if this works.

This is a common problem with computers that have relatively small hard drives. Space issues can be addressed by various means. The best solution, for the long term, is to get a larger hard drive, which are, nowadays, fairly cheap. In the short term though there are several things that can be done to free up space. One way is to run the disk cleanup utility that comes with XP. Another way is to delete any temporary files stored in the temp directory. Next you could uninstall any games/applications that you do not use. This will also help with the running of the computer due to some applications needing to use resources. If they are not installed then you will free up the resources. If you have a lot of pictures, movies and music consider moving them onto some removable media like a pen drive, external hard drive or DVD. This will also be useful if your hard drive dies. You won't lose them. Other options are to reduce the size of the space reserved for temporary internet files. I often find this is set too high and find that a setting of 250MB is adequate. You could also reduce the size reserved for the restore points. This will reduce the number of restore points but in most cases won't be a problem.

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:27:42 +0000, FlamingoRose wrote: > My Drive D, which is my backup disk, is too full, less than 15% available space, and therefore will not allow me to defragment. What can I do? See LemP's reply, but let me add the following: Your question makes it sound like drive D: is a second internal driveor a second partition on your only drive? If either is the case, usingit for backup is playing with fire. I don't recommend backup to a second non-removable hard drive becauseit leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original andbackup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches,nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer. In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not keptin the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if thelife of your business depends on your data) you should have multiplegenerations of backup, and at least one of those generations should bestored off-site. My computer isn't used for business, but my personal backup schemeuses two identical removable hard drives, I alternate between the two,and use Acronis True Image to make a complete copy of the primarydrive. I also use a pair of 1GB thumb drives for making more frequent backupsof my most critical data (like financial information). For that I justdrag and drop. You might want to read this article on backup I've written: "Back UpYour Computer Regularly and Reliably" athttp://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=314 Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP