XPS 13 and windows backup

Question

Hi there,

Might be posting in the wrong spot, but last night my xps 13 asked me to create a backup, so I did to my external harddrive.

After the backup was done, I got a warning that xps's hardrive was almost full!

I have gone through and deleted some items that i didn't need or moved them to the external harddrive, but i have a couple of questions.

I have about 11 gigs of music on this laptop, not much else a few small programs and when i click properties on the c drive, it says:

45.2 gb free of 92.9 gb

So if i have used 45 gb, and i know 11 gigs is music, what else is using that much gb?

also, the specs of this computer say the hardrive should be128 gb, where is the rest of my gb?

Sorry to sound nooby, but i do not understand this at all.

Thanks,

Kam.

Mary G · Answer

You should always give the exact model computer and which operating system you have so we can give your specific help. I'm guessing you have a Studio xps 13 and not the new xps 13 ultrabook that just came out. Are you sure the backup went to an external usb hard drive? If you have automatic backup set up and have not selected a separate external usb hard drive, you might be saving backups to a partition on your internal drive. Your internal drive can have partitions that are called C drive and D drive. Those are not drives, just partitions on the single hard drive which makes the backups useless. The D partition is for your Recovery Image. It's small--usually 15 GB--and is not supposed to be used or changed. Use Computer Management, Disk Management to see a visual of all your drive. If you have used the D drive at all, that is the section that is full, not your C partition.

Wade9010 · Answer

The operating system takes up 15-23GB, so there is part of your 45. Also, any programs you have installed take up space. Finally, a 128GB drive will actually only have 118-125GB due to formatting and the Master Boot Record.

Hope this helps!

Wade

Wade9010 · Answer

I forgot to add one more thing- Dell adds a recovery partition to there new computers that takes up 5-15GB depending on the operating system. Hope that clarifies it! Wade

Wade9010 · Answer

Right click on my computer and select manage. Once the windows opens, select disk management. When the screen is loaded you should see the partitions that are on your hard disk. Wade

Kambiz44 · Answer

It would, how would I view this partition?

Kambiz44 · Answer

Yes, I understand the largest program I have is office 2010 at about 600 megabytes, this doesn't seem right and happened exactly after my windows backup had completed.

Kambiz44 · Answer

Hi Mary, It is the new xps 13 ultrabook, I thought I specified to backup to my external (I clicked on it), but now i'm not sure.

Kambiz44 · Answer

Hi Wade,

I have done this and this is what I have:

4 volumes

#1 no name but is 39 MB with 39 MB free

#2 no name but is 8 GB with 8 GB free

#3 OS (C:) and is 92.95 GB with 46.49 GB free

#4 RECOVERY and is 18.25 GB with 8.01 GB free

Does that sound about normal?

I just spent the entire day reinstalling everything as dell support could not fix my cypress track pad without restoring my laptop to factory settings. nice. I just finishes, so that's about 7 hour of getting the computer back the way it was and a working track pad.....not impressed.

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XPS 13 and windows backup

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