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Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Jan 12 - 01:02 AM I use the free version of WinPatrol. Bill D told me about that one years ago, and it really does a great job because all it does is guard the registry. Never heard of Clary, but that doesn't mean anything. WinPatrol is also great for clearing out the junk that piles into the start menu, slowing down your computer at startup. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Gene Date: 14 Jan 12 - 12:45 AM GLARY offers 2 FREE programs that are very useful.. ARO Advanced Registry Organizer and Glary Utilities - which has about 6 functions.. and is TOTALLY FREE and updated often.. G |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Jan 12 - 05:35 PM I refined my information a bit more before beginning the move. On the same sevenforums.com site I found this question: Having another bite at this after failing miserably first time around. I think I may have been confused about the distinction between special folders and libraries in Windows 7. In fact, I may still be. I'm finding this very difficult to get my head around! He is doing what I was doing when I first chose to place my data on a separate drive. On the computer that was stolen in 2005 I had put Win2000Pro in beside the flimsy Windows ME (a weak form of 98). I rarely used the ME side, but it was there to reach some of the programs that came with the computer and could operate some of the computer features. I haven't had to do that since, but it is good to know how. Anyway, this is the brief answer. If you want the reassurance of the screen capture illustrations, look at that first link I supplied. Otherwise, here's a simple description: It is actually quite simple. And it really is that simple. Here is where someone described his experience of it a little more: It makes perfect sense. I use an entirely separate drive for all of the special folders in both Vista and now Windows 7 - in fact, I used the same folders over and over again - so when I upgrade my OS using a clean install, all my downloads, pictures, music, documents, contacts, etc are all right back in the system with a minimal amount of editing. This is the page where these quotes came from: http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/18147-moving-storage-location-libraries.html SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 12 Jan 12 - 11:25 AM "...no tech support to mess it up..." *grin*... now that just might be significant. Reminds me of the old comment..."If things don't get better soon, I may have to ask you to stop helping." |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Jan 12 - 10:44 AM I'll look into this more, but if the data is on a separate drive, a virus is less likely to hit there, and most programs can be reinstalled if necessary. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 12 Jan 12 - 03:19 AM Bill D - Your ancient PC appears to be about the same age as mine, but mine had the additonal benefit that I never needed support from the builder until about a year ago. When I tried to contact them I learned that they'd filed bankruptcy and folded the company about 6 months after I bought it (5+ years before I thought I needed them). Maybe that's part of the reason it took so long for the old beast to start getting cranky - no tech support to mess it up. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 12 Jan 12 - 03:14 AM Stilly - Unless you put programs on the D:\ drive, System Restore may not do much of anything there. From (Vista) Windows Help, System Restore: "System Restore can make changes to Windows system files, registry settings, and programs installed on your computer. It also can make changes to scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files on your computer. Personal files, such as documents, e‑mail, photos, and music files, are not changed. "For example, if you download a personal file, such as a photo from a digital camera, on a Friday and then restore your computer to the state it was in two days earlier on Wednesday, the photo will still be on your computer. "However, if you install a photo viewing program on a Friday and then restore your computer to the state it was in two days earlier on Wednesday, System Restore will uninstall the program, and you won't be able to use that program to view photos." This does suggest that "install" is used in what is an unusual sense for Microsoft. The inclusion of "scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files" implies a more inclusive meaning than was found in descriptions of the older versions of System Restore. One still wonders if links embedded in documents, or .docm files that include macros, and .docx files with "active content" will be included(?). The "it can make changes ..." is also disturbing, since they don't say what "it WILL make changes to ..." The concern, so far as I can see, is what might be deleted by restoring than with what might be missed in the backup. Your documents, photos, music files, etc., still require another separate backup method, so you'd likely include the questionable ones there anyway. (Those still using WinXP or earlier should note that the System Restore there doesn't do nearly as much as is described above.) John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jan 12 - 11:18 PM I looked my my system restore settings - only about 1% is in use on my C: drive. The D: drive was off, since nothing is in it now, but I set it to restore that also. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 11 Jan 12 - 07:52 PM I will monitor it, John...and I have learned some important new concepts in this thread (not just 'rules', but ideas about how things are actually organized & done.) Note,, this "daring fellow" has milked that PC, with the same HD, for about 7 years now--with almost no serious problem- and no viruses or malware....which is why I'm trying to sort it all out before it decides I have pushed my luck too far. My safety net has been backups and anti-virus and anti-malware... I intend to install a 2nd 'slave drive' and copy the entire drive.. (not just a data backup) because I have a lot of toys and personal setup at stake. I LIKE XP...even though I will likely get a Win7 machine some day. I would NOT like to have to reinstall all my collection of programs. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:54 PM Bill D The system restore points, if you're using Vista or later and if your drive is formatted NTSF, are in a separate hidden partition. The partition is removed from available space, regardless of how much is in it; but it appears that OS can automatically inrease/reduce the partition size as needed, unless it reaches the maximum you have set. If you told it to impose a limit lower than required by the files already in the partition, it's doubtful that the limit would be reset until sufficient files were removed to allow the remaining ones to fit in the new partition size. Turning off System Restore (or System Protection as it's called in latest versions) should have deleted all the files, so the resizing of the partition to the new limit could be done. A limit of 10% only means that the partition will use 10% or less of the drive. Since the reduction in space used appears to be close to the space used by restore points previously (note that I didn't look closely at your numbers) it's possible that the new limit you set won't allow the ghost partition enough space to make a useful image, but the reduction would be from deleting files, and the change in allowed space would have no effect (for now). You might want to take a look to see if you get a new Restore Point after the system has had time to do the reconstruction after you turned the Restore function back on. Creation of a new restore point will run in background, and may take a while. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:13 PM Once I have a good backup, I'll take a look and give that a try. You're a daring fellow, Bill, up on that tightrope with your computer and no net. :) SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:02 PM I read and mulled it all over and tried...twice... to use the option to 'delete all restore points except the last one'. For some reason, it didn't do that. (Perhaps I didn't properly 'ok' the command.. *shrug*.) It did do a basic 'cleanup' which got me about 4 gigs of space recovered. So... I did another scan...verified that huge amounts of space were still devoted to restore points. Then I simply did the "turn off system restore" and let it hum.... then turned it back on. Voila! 92 MORE gigs recovered. I am not sure why the setting of limiting system restore to 10% did not limit it....but it's a computer! Anyway, I can now do sensible backups. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jan 12 - 02:25 PM As long as I leave the programs and the user profile (Windows: Users: Username) on the C: drive all of the programs will look to that to find the documents, images, etc. And that user profile will know that the data is now on the D: drive. I don't want to make it any more complicated than that. I set up my backup program last night but found this morning that the energy saver program put the computer to sleep after two hours. I'll reset that to "never" until I finish the backup tonight. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 11 Jan 12 - 08:08 AM Bill D - about System Restore (vaguely?) Up through WinXP, Windows included the ability to save "settings" as System Restore Points. Program files and such were not included. The only thing saved was a copy of the Registry and a few other "key files." If System Restore was turned on, a new restore point was saved each time you shutdown if changes to settings had been made during that session. A maximum number of Restore Points was saved, and recollection was that it was something like 6 or so. After the max was reached, each new Restore Point replaced the oldest previous one. The assumption here was that corruption of the "settings" was a most likely cause of failure when you tried to restart, and that the system configuration when you shut down was "likely" to be a good one. A problem with this was that malware that managed to write to the Registry could insert a command to reinstall itself at the next reboot (if it had been removed), so it was necessary to be able to remove potentially infected Restore Points. Restoring to the Registy typically writes any lines missing, but does not remove any lines already present so it has limited ability to actualy recover a true prior configuration. Turning off System Restore deleted all prior Restore Points. With Vista, and in all since, Microsoft announced computerdom's scariest statement: "Something new was added." Unlike earlier FAT formats, the NTFS format permits "movable boot sectors" and as a result "movable partitions" that can be placed anywhere on the drive, theoretically without disturbing what's in existing partitions. This made it "convenient" to change the System Restore name to "System Protection." (It sounded more impressive.) The "System Protection" functions somewhat like the older System Restore, but makes a "phantom copy" of both the setup files (Registry et. al.) and of critical OS files in a hidden partition on the system drive. It may be possible to specify creation of the phantom partition on another drive, but I haven't looked that far. I haven't seen any information about how you can "look at" the hidden partition, but it's probably similar to the (notorious WOM?) Microsoft backups, and is both encrypted and "maximally compressed." so that even if you could find it the only way to tell what it contains would be by restoring it (although the recovery utility may give some information). Like a backup, it's pretty much all or nothing. Microsoft says that turning off System Protection should delete all prior restore points, but since you can specify, or modify, the size permitted for the "ghost partition" it must be assumed that the partition for them remains, with it's same allocated size. Removing the files won't change how much space is available in the visible partition that you see as the "Drive Size." (I think, from what I've found.) Note that since the "flying partition feature" is essential to make the "phantom copy partition" possible, this ONLY WORKS if you have NTFS format on the drive. Microsoft has not included a capability in any of the released versions, so far as I've heard, to allow users to move and resize partitions with data in place; but quite obviously the system tools are able to do it for its own secret and mysterious purposes. You already found the place where you can change the maximum size allowed for the "ghost partition," but it's unlikely that the resize would occur if it deleted anything in the partition. It probably would be necessary to turn off System Protection, to delete all existing copies in the partition, then do the reduction, and then turn System Protection back on, in order for the reduced size to be effective - but I'm just guessing about this. Remembered history is that it's always a very good idea to thoroughly defrag any drive on which you intend to create, remove, or otherwise modify partitions. (It was sometimes possible to create new partitions in free space without losing existing files, even with the oldest formats.) Recent Windows versions give no meaningful report on the fragmentation currently on the drive, and the defrag program has been intentionally made compatible with "background processing" so that you can't even really tell if it's running or waiting. It does, with default settings, run automatically (usually weekly?) so fragmentation shouldn't be too bad, but there are lots of clues that it stops at some (unknown by mortals) degree of remaining frags. I get queasy feelings about things like this, but there's not a lot you can do about it. Running aftermarket (third party) defraggers IS NOT RECOMMENDED on NTFS formatted drives, but I've seen little to indicate whether many people are doing it or what success they actually have had. NTFS attempts to add a lot more information in top level folders, most of which is gathered and written in as a background process "later" when files are added, removed, or modified; and moving many files (as happens with a defrag) can impose a rather heavy burden on the OS to reconstruct all the information that could change, before the drive gets over the resulting amnesia and paranoia. This is, of course, just a superficial summary, and includes quite a bit of speculation. Take it with the usual ... John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 10 Jan 12 - 11:14 PM Stilly - There are utilities built into the neweer Windows versions that let you "migrate" files from an old system into the new, that take care of updating all the links; but I haven't heard of a good one that takes care of the shortcuts/links just for a move within the same system. For desktop links, if you move (or copy) the entire file structure (the whole tree), for example from C:\ to D:\, the only difference will be that the desktop shortcuts will say C:\<path>\filename and you need them to say D:\<path>\filename. Unless you've got an enormous number of shortcuts on the desktop, it shouldn't take long to manually edit the shortcuts. I've only got about 45 icons on my desktop, but some people might have more. My suggestion would be that you leave programs that were installed at default locations on C:\. Windows has some (limited) ability to look for associated exe and dll files for some programs, and leaving them in default locations may let things run a little smoother for programs with quite a few "associated files." You would move only the documents, image files, etc created by your progams to the other drive. If you do it this way, you won't need to change the shortcut targets for programs, but probably will still want to change the "Start In" setting (in Properties for each shortcut) that's the default for where the program saves its outputs and where it looks when you need to reopen something. Right click the icon, and click Properties. The Properties window usually will have a "Shortcut" tab. In the "Shortcut" box, change C:\ to D:\ if you moved the program. In the "Start In" box change C:\ to D:\ if you moved the documents etc for the program to a new drive where you'll be keeping what that the program creates. By NOT USING an automatic "mover program" you have better control of what you choose to move, at the cost of doing a fairly small amount of "cleanup." The most likely real "clinker" with moving things around is with .htm files. A very large percentage of html files have an "associated folder" with the same filename as the html "document." The folder contains all the "linked in junk" that the "document" needs to display properly. When you download/save html (especially from the web) the save operation automatically changes all the links inside the "document" to point to the folder at the location where both are first saved. If you move either, or even if you move both together, those links will still point to the old location and the html document will be broken. Making even a minor change to the html filename also can often "break things." You can sometimes go through an html and edit the links manually, but that's not often very successful. The better procedure is to open the html "document" in your browser, from the original location, and save from the open document to the new location, but of course you have to do that one file at a time. The even "very much better" method is to get in the habit of using "Save As" when saving from the web, and save the pages as "Web Archive, single file (.mht)" (the IE choice, the description may be different with other browsers). Instead of the html format that uses links to objects in a subfolder of the folder containing the html document, an mht file has all the linked objects along with the page itself in a single file, and all the links are "local links within the file" so you can move, rename, and about anything else you might want to do without worrying about the file falling apart. Again, the only reliable way of changing the format for an html file (as for just moving one) is to open the page in your browser and "Save As" using the new format - in a new location if you want it also moved. Incidentally, I've used the "system image" procedure according to Microsoft's instructions, for both WinXP and Vista. The Vista instructions are essentially identical to the Win7 instructions you linked. I've only had occasion to do an "image restore" recently in one case. The system reported "no image found" on the drive where I'd stored it - as the only thing on the drive. Microsoft "backups" have had the reputation, since at least Win98, of being "write only." Anyone at Microsoft who needs something recovered just calls their in-house Support people who put back what they want from copies, not images. (All in-house computers there are backed up to the servers, probably still nightly.) Nobody at Microsoft has ever attempted to do a System Restore or Image Restore, and the remote possibility of "restoring" something is only mentioned in passing in any Microsoft help or support descriptions of what it "might be possible to do." Be aware. A "System Recovery Disk," something slightly different than a "System Image" may be a more useful thing to have, with slightly better likelihood of actually being usable. There'd be no real harm in having one of each.(?) John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 12 - 10:11 PM I poked around and found what I needed. There is a nice, relatively understandable forum called sevenforums.com with a page called Windows 7 - User Folders - Change Default Location. This is what I was looking for, to leave my profile information on C: but to move all of my data to D:. This is DIFFERENT than another option they describe, of moving your entire user profile to the other drive, in which case, you've set yourself up to have to reinstall some stuff. TAKE OPTION 2 - IT'S EASIER!! Their tip: Moving a user folder and it's contents to be stored at another location can be handy if you wanted or needed to save hard drive space on the C: drive. I've set up the new external drive for backup and I'll do a backup of the C: drive before I start all of this. I can't say I've always been good about doing the backup before computer brain surgery, but I will this time because I've been meaning to get this thing out of the box for months. And if you're interested, here are some backup instructions. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 08:19 PM 'some' programs can be moved easily, as they are not installed, but only write to their .ini file. (but you no doubt know that) Others usually have to be re-installed with a new designated address. There 'might' be a help in an older program once distributed by PC Magazine called COA "change of address" which helps put them somewhere else and clarify that to the PCs registry. It is now only on an Italian site where one aficionado saves "rare ware" and one Sourceforge site. http://digilander.libero.it/rareware/coa2.zip http://xpt.sourceforge.net/old_home/tools/win/coa32.zip I have no idea if it is still relevant, but I suspect one might have to totally re-install some things. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:21 PM I'll try again. Having had a computer drive fail or get clobbered in the past and lost data in the process, in my last computer I put the programs on the C: drive but parked the data (Documents, pictures, etc.) - now called Libraries - on the D: drive. When I first did that I may have used Windows Explorer, but the point is, I want my programs and shortcuts on the desktop to be able to still find my data. All of the addresses have to be changed so the programs on C: can find the Data: in D. I'm not copying, I'm moving, emptying out space in C: SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:33 PM 22! Nice.... mine is still running as of 5 min ago.....that's about 45 min. of cleanup... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:19 PM I assure you, Bill, that I hardly ever know what I'm doing. I just read about that one somewhere. After I posted I thought I'd just do it meself - and immediately regained 22 Gb! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:02 PM *grin*... it took 10 minutes to even determine how much space could be saved and offer me 'more options' of removing old restore points... and it is at maybe 20 minutes now doing the actual cleaning and compressing. I assume all will be better soon. That sure filled an important gap in *MY* knowledge base. I may have seen that semi-obscure menu sometime in the past, but had lost track of it. Thanks, Steve. (I do incremental backups of *data* using a nice utility called "Cobian Backup") |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:18 PM !! I thought I had looked at ALL the menu items, Steve. I confess I had not seen that one. I shall now go to the 'other' computer where the problem is and see what happens.... and report back. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Tootler Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:16 PM I use the Linux tool Rsync for my backups.It does incremental backups, that is, after the first run, it only copies the changed portions of files so it is pretty quick. In it's basic form it's a command line tool which is how I use it but there are versions for Windows which include a GUI. Either go to Rsync.net and follow the "Windows Backup agent" link or try DeltaCopy. Both of these use rsync with a GUI. You can also get a command line version but the procedure for setting it up looks pretty tedious and it's probably not worth it in Windows for most people. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Jan 12 - 04:54 PM Right-click on the disk that's getting full up with restore points. Click Properties then Disk Cleanup. When it's finished its scan, click More Options. You can then remove all but the last restore point. I don't know whether there's a way of curbing the computer's misbehaviour in wasting so much disk space on restore points, but there flippin' well ought to be! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 04:43 PM Now... having said what I knew about,(not a whole lot) I want to ask a related question. MY C drive is getting pretty full, but I saw no particular reason. Adding stuff up in my file manager didn't seem to account for that much. Finally, I used a program which does an analysis of a drive... "Space Sniffer"... and it found 92 gigabytes devoted to "restore points"!! I do understand the value of having restore points, but I don't totally understand how they work and how much *I* can control them. I see the place I can define how much drive space they are 'supposed' to use, but that was set at 10%, and reducing it to maybe 3% made no difference. I see also that I can turn OFF that service, but that seems like a bad idea, and does not say it would clean up the backlog. The program listed many dozens of individual 'files' in the restore point area, but no way to identify them by date or relevance. My intuition says I ought to be able to discard old ones...sort of by date... and keep only those relevant to perhaps a couple months.... but I am not sure if that IS how it works. In the past, I have moved large collection of images and music to portable drives and gained a lot of space.... but now I am running out of things I really want to move....and 92 GIGS?? Any ideas, John or others? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:31 PM I use XCOPY routinely for backups. If you open a command prompt (still called a DOS Window by some) and type "XCOPY /?" (without the quotes) you'll get a full description of what the command does in the Windows version you're using. There have been changes to lots of commands in successive versions of Windows, although I haven't noticed significant ones in XCOPY up through Vista and Win7. To backup the folder C:\Stuff I go to the drive and folder where I want to add the files, and use: XCOPY C:\Stuff\*.* /s /c /d The *.* is the wild card form that says "all files." The /s says include subfolders The /c says "continue on error." Note that without the /c, a file that requires a password or other authorization will cause the program to terminate, and the remaining files won't get copied. With the /c it just skips that file. Encrypted files (and/or password protected ones) can't be copied or moved by any simple means except by unencrypting first, and reapplying the encryption (and/or password) after copying. (I have ONE FILE that my kid "bought" that got included in a backup years ago, and I keep it because he refuses to back up his own stuff; so I need the /c.) The /d says "copy only files with dates later than files already on the destination drive." (i.e. copy only new/changed files.) You can copy the files and then delete them from the original (source) drive, of course. There is a "Move" command, (Vista doesn't recognize the "MOV" abbreviation used in older versions), that will copy to the target drive and delete from the source drive automatically. You can get the details by typing MOVE /? in the DOS Window, but for large moves I can't really recommend it until you've at least tried it for a few smaller gobs of files first to be sure you have all the switches (the /x stuff) right. I've noticed that using Windows Explorer to Copy and Paste from one place to another (or Drag and Drop) is sometimes unpredictable when you copy whole Folders, with some contents of the folder sometimes failing to copy. This is especially true when a folder includes subfolders that contain files. You can get it done that way, but you need to be very careful about verifying that everything came across before deleting the source files. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Gurney Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:29 PM I just tried to defrag, and my C was too full too. I deleted photos of stuff that I'd sold online, but the main culprit was a Backup that I still had. 30GB, just sitting there. 250GB HD, XP. And I do have an external HD with music files on, but which I rarely switch on/plug in, it is my belt-and-braces reserve. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: EBarnacle Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM Actually, SRS, I'm just learning Win7 Ultimate myself but I had to be rescued recently when my key hard drive physically died. The data were transferred to an external and are being selectively reloaded to the W7 machine on an as needed basis. No partitions at all, just actual drives. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM ahhh... here is one I remember reading about... clonezilla and here is 'most' of another post on the topic which I copied directly from the newsgroup...by another dependable author. "On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:22:58 -0700 (PDT), Teflon > I have a WD 160 GB external HDD attached to an XP Pro SP3 machine and > that HDD is starting to act weird, so I would like to move everything > off of that drive to a new 230GB drive. The old 160 GB drive is > formatted in FAT32, so would like to format the new 320 GB in NTFS. > The contents are application backup data and media files. > > My plan is to format the new drive to NTFS, then use the XP 'Backup' > tool to move the contents of the old drive to the new drive. I would > then disconnect the old drive and assign the new drive the old drive's > letter (E:), assuming the apps that backup to the old E: drive would > continue doing so on the new E: drive without my having to do anything > to the app. > > See any problems so far? > > Any better approach recommendations? No problems at all with the concept. Dave Lipman's advice to simply clone the drive is probably the easiest and best way to do it, though. If you still want to go the copy route, I've done similar things many times before with both internal and external drives without a single hitch. I've never used the XP backup tool, but other free software I use and like for this and other related copy jobs include: Unstoppable Copier: http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P29/Unstoppable%20Copier (LOTS of other good software on the Roadkil site) FreeFileSync: http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/ Both are highly useful tools to have, and both offer portable or standalone versions. " |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:40 PM SRS... you want to totally copy one C drive to another drive or computer? The geek-tech way is by using a DOS program called 'xxcopy' I, being scared to death of DOS, have never tried it, but I see references to it in the newsgroup I frequent. It is used regularly by one member of that group... here is discussion he had about it There is supposed to be decent app with a GUI also... I'll see f I can find it. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:10 PM So . . . I delayed putting my data on the D: drive because I bought the computer and figured I could get the extra hard drive and install it once there was a good sale. I found it, but last year I didn't move the data onto that drive, and C: is in the red zone. I've created partitions and moved data before and the program has asked me if I want to change all of the reference/drive paths to reflect these new locations. I'll have to redo some desktop short cuts, but since I'm using Win7 Ultimate, has anyone found new wrinkles or steps in the process? I don't want to copy my data, I want to move it completely. I've responded to this question myself, but it was in an XP Pro context. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 02 May 08 - 09:28 AM Originally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations (a human computer), often with the aid of a mechanical calculating device. :-) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Backwoodsman Date: 01 May 08 - 11:28 AM "There are still people out there that do not understand COMPUTORS ,put your feet back on the ground and listen to someone else for a change" And there are still people out there who like to think they're pc-whizzkids, but still can't even spell computer, apparently. ROFL!! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bernard Date: 01 May 08 - 11:12 AM For what it's worth... I use Netgear SC101 Network Attached Storage units for my backups. They are a bit 'clunky' and messy to set up with a weird file system called Z-San, but have the advantage of allowing me to install two drives per unit and set them up 'mirrored'. I've been using them for around four years, now, and have had one unit fail, replaced without question under warranty, and a couple of drives have failed... but on each occasion I didn't lose data thanks to the mirroring, which has to be good. The daft thing about them is that each unit needs its own IP address, each HDD needs its own IP address, and each partition needs its own IP address! It does mean, though, that the mirrored drives don't have to be on the same unit, which gives additional security - as long as they're on the same network they don't even have to be in the same building! On the downside they are rather slow when compared with a USB 2 or FireWire external drive. But if you're leaving a backup running overnight, who cares?! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 22 Apr 08 - 07:13 PM goodlife - I appreciate the suggestion, but in this case I have carefully confirmed that the files "disappeared" - completely. None appeared in the trash bin. Neither a command line (DOS) search (Dir *.jpg /s) nor a command line Attrib search (Attrib *.jpg /s), nor a Windows Explorer search including hidden and system files - on all three drives connected at the time - showed any of the missing ones. [All files that were were lost were .jpg images.] While all the files had been saved previously in final form and were just being moved, and most of them probably could have been recovered with a deleted file utility, it would take longer to go through the correction (and proofing) of first chars for all of them than to just re-create them in this case, even using a simple "rename.bat" method. (The filenames were specific to the individual image, and I'd still have to open an original to get the info required even to replace first chars accurately.) Only about 1,400 files to go to re-create the lost ones. (~7,500 done already. Fortunately part of the processing is "repetitious" and can be "Batched" in Photoshop Elements. I did have a backup that's only two or three simple steps back from the final versions of each file.) There's also the consolation that it's not really a "necessary" project. Just something to kill a little time pending really important posts here, that "require" my attention. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: GUEST,goodlife Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM files don't usually disapear maybe you sent them to another folder try search *.jpg then goto bed for an hour or so |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:28 PM Having had five hard drive TOTAL FAILURES in the past couple of years, I've become a firm believer in regular backups. Having had one main HD failure, in an instance where the backup HD also failed before I could get the replacement HD reinstalled and programs loaded and updated, I've become a firm believer in REDUNDANT regular backups. One 250GB drive is partitioned with half used for all my "web knowledge" of downloads, notes and such so that I can comment on important items of interest here. The other half of that drive is sufficient to make weekly collections of the Document folders on three desktops and one "currently used" laptop, along with bits from some obsolete laptops. A pair of separate 250GB "portable external" HDs ("shirt-pocket" size) are used alternately to actually backup all of our data about monthly. These two are NEVER connected1 to the system except during actual backup (or recovery). I consider one of these two my "primary long term backup" and the other is so that I can take everything I might need along (with the laptop) when on long-term trips away from home. Before getting the two portables, I made lots of CD backups, but that became unwieldy at about 300 CDs with "current data" - not counting info like old emails and correspondence (150 CDs?) that business regulations require that we keep for a decade or so. and "data collections" like older music (indexes, scores, midis from books previously "published") on about 50 CDs. 1 Some isolation is necessary. An AV full scan on my machine takes about 7 hours now, and would scan everything at least twice if backup drives were left connected. Despite it all, yesterday a mysterious glitch (related to a new Office 2007 installation, I think) lost 50 hours worth of work that was "in progress" and hadn't made it to backup. The source material was, of course, in backup, so I can recreate it quite easily. It's only about 9,000 .jpg files that simply disappeared during a transfer to final folders. Back to work. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: GUEST,Shaneo not logged in Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:24 PM Just a quick follow up from my original thread, soon after taking all that great advice my computer crashed, the whole thing got messed up and windows had to be reinstalled, it was the best thing that could have happened as all the junk I accumulated was gone and when it was repaired it was like a new computer. Lucky enough I had copied much of my songs to hard-drive-D and was able to retrieve everything of value. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: GUEST,good life Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:09 PM ah for the t#echnical side of things and thank god for the punctuation side of things. but do you know if any body else can understand you ,if you have got degrees an all that it's easy but us down to earth people dont' understand a word you are saying so what good is that no help at all so you are wasting your time answering the question .You so called boffins i was teaching an old lady to use a computor she wanted to copy a file and i said right click the file and select copy ,she sat at the computor and typed CLICK. There are still people out there that do not understand COMPUTORS ,put your feet back on the ground and listen to someone else for a change |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:06 AM Sincerity - learn to fake it if you want to be an Actor. Geek Speak - learn to fake it if you want to be a (Pseudo) Computer Tech... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 20 Apr 08 - 03:50 PM *sigh*...I will NEVER understand what goes on in a mind that cannot be bothered to use punctuation in typing. Not only that, but as I 'tried' to read that post, it bacame clear that 'goodlife' has VERY little comprehension of what is actually useful and sensible. It takes all kinds, I guess. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 Apr 08 - 01:54 PM So it's non-tech if you repeat what someone else has said but omit all the punctuation so that it's unintelligible? It does pose an interesting question: whether "technical stuff" is defined by whether it contains any information or whether it conveys any information. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: GUEST,goodlife Date: 20 Apr 08 - 04:02 AM hi all this tachnical stuf is great but it is an easy one to solve copy all your music from c to d open my music click file or a folder once to highlight it press the keys Ctrl and A together or select all then right click on the menu choose copy then goto my computor select the d drive open it right click on the window select new folder right click the new folder and select rename name it my music 2 then open the folder right click the window and select paste all your music is now on your d drive {if a file or folder icon as a little black arrow stuck on it it means that it is only a shortcut} and now for the fun side windows media player will not be able to find them so goto media player click menu tools delete all files on the window that opens make sure that remove all files from media player only is checked goto my music folder and delete all files goto media player on menu select find media files it will put them back |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Nick E Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:41 AM Just delete the 99% of the crap, that you do not need, but still have |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:35 AM With all the downloading and saving being done, and with people getting larger and larger drives to save more and more stuff, has anyone calculated: Does the time required to transfer a TB of data to a new drive exceed the "Mean Time Before Failure" (MTBF) currently quoted by manufacturers for their big hard drives? And if the drive lasts long enough to fill it, does it also live long enough to recover anything from it after it's filled? (On average, of course) John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Gulliver Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM My application of choice for the past few years for downloading web sites is Webreaper, but just as you recommend for WinHTTrack, parameters have to be set correctly, otherwise it tries to download the entire web (which would mean I'd have to get a bigger computer!). Don |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Bill D Date: 19 Apr 08 - 10:21 AM One of the most amazing *FREE* programs for PC is WinHTTrack. It will get a website to almost any degree of completeness you wish. If you use it be SURE you set parameters correctly and have enough space. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: Gulliver Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:31 AM Thanks John and Foolstroupe for the feedback. I'm going to stick with Firefox for the forseeable future. I think I'll download some information on it to my laptop and take it with me to peruse when I go on my holidays to the (hopefully) sunny south of Italy next week. Don |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: JohnInKansas Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:28 AM Where is the Save command in IE or Firefox? I can't speak to Firefox, but in IE the "File" button has both "Save" and "Save As" on the dropdown list. On web pages, the "Save" usually is "grayed out" and unusable - something to do with "you're not the creator so you don't have edit rights," or something of the sort. The difficulty is that for IE7, by default the "Menu Bar" where you used to find "File" is turned off. You have to go to the "tools cockleburr" at the right end of the main bar to turn on the toolbar (put a check at "Menu bar") to get the standard File Edit View etc buttons. In IE7 you can also click on the "Page" button, next to the "Tools," and the dropdown has "Save As" on it, although "Save" doesn't appear there. I find the "Save As" very much preferable to the straight "Save," since I always want to put the saved item in the right place in the 7,587 folders on my "scratch disk" where I keep notes on my web browsing. Since web pages come in a few different formats, Save As also lets me confirm that I'm going to get a stable .mht file and not a bucketful of files and folders with corruptible links. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 19 Apr 08 - 05:02 AM Tok me ages to work that out - and nobody I asked could tell m |
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