Picture of Recovery Drive has turned Red

Hello Nissi1, The D: drive you refer to, is the Dell Recovery Restore partition.

The D: drive (partition) contains all the Dell Recovery Restore data for use if you decided to restore your system to the state as it was shipped.

It is normal for it to be almost completely full, and you should try to do nothing to change this drive or data in it, or your Dell Recovery Restore feature would not wok.

You also have 2 additional partitions on the drive that are hidden, but can be seen from within the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management.

Without getting too technical, data is written in bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes.

These are just numbers to allow users to see what size data is on their systems.

Most users will only deal with megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB).

Just think of them as one, eight, hundreds, millions, billions, trillions.

I suppose I should mention that while your hard drive may be advertised as, for example a 500 GB capacity, it will only show in the Windows operating systems as around 465 GB, due to the way Windows calculates the data and format considerations. 

Hope this helps.

Good afternoon,

Thank you LANPartyGeek and Hanspuppa,

I now remember reading an article that said the Recovery Drive can become full with restore points of backed-up data.  It also suggested deletion of the older restore points when the drive becomes full, to make room for the newer points.  However it has now been suggested this should not be done.

My 20 month old computer only contains emails, pictures, which are precious to me, bookmarks and feeds.  What will happen when the drive becomes full?  Will the computer be unable to create new restore points?  Will I be unable to backup new information?  Will the computer rid itself of the older restore points to make room for the newer ones?

Thank you LANPartyGeek for the information on external drives. 

Thank you Hanspuppa for explaining bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes.

Continued blessings,

Nissi1

Hello Hanspuppa,

Thank you for all the information.  I will clean all the Restore Point.

BTW, my name may have changed for this post.  I spent the last 3 days attempting to re-enter my account, it was a mess.  But I will start a new thread for that.

A blessed and safe holiday I wish for you and your family.

Nissi1

I forgot to mention how adorable the dogs are.

Hello  nissi2, I also, have had so  much trouble with the email responses, I had to turn it off in my profile.

That makes it a little difficult to try and remember what I have posted and what I haven't.

Maybe soon, this will all get straightened out.

I hope so.

Thanks Again...

When wisdom comes with age, you no longer have to bark loudly.  It teaches speaking softly or in come cases not at all speaks the loudest.

Hanspuppa is adorable.  Thank you for sharing that bit of information. 

As you mentioned in your earlier post, I also will wait a few more days to ensure as best as one can, all is well with my computer before I clean up all the restore points.  At this time there is havoc between this forum and my computer.  Along with everything else, after your last post I received 3 email notices: an email notifying me of my post; an email notifying me of your previous post; and an email notifying me of your last post.  But I will certainly post back after the cleanup with my experience.

Continued grace to you and all your loved ones,

Nissi1

Hello Nissi1&2, Glad things are working out for you. I also had the issue of lost post. DCF still has some work to do here.

You could leave the D: drive unchecked since it is the Dell Recovery Restore partition on the hard drive and is not supposed to be used as a drive for use to store any files except the Dell Recovery Restore files.

You can use this procedure for the C: drive from time to time if you feel it is needed.

Otherwise you seem to have accomplished what you set out to do.

I have choosen to leave the DCF after about 5 years here due to certain members attitudes toward me and others.

So I wanted to come back and check you progress one more time since you advised you would update us on your success or lack therof.

I have enjoyed most of my time here, but it is now time for me to go.

Thanks again for your update.

I wanted to check Suggest As Answer on the post where the instructions for cleaning the Recovery (D) drive exists.  However, if you notice, Suggest As Answer does not exist on that particular post, at least not on my end.  If it does on your end, please check it.  If not I will choose another of your posts As An Answer.  Also, I was unable to indicate the appropriate Tags.  When I typed a letter, something else was suggested and I was unable to delete it.

Nissi1&2

Good evening Hanspuppa,

How is Hanspuppa?   As promised, I am writing to share my experience of how I cleaned up space in my D drive which was becoming full with Restore Points.

As you suggested, first I waited a few days to ensure, as best I could, that my system was operating properly.  Along with my resident security system, I ran scans with Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware to rid any malwares that may be present.  I also ran CCleaners to clean out temporary files, cookies, etc.  Then, as you suggested, I opened the Backup and Restore System, clicked Create A Restore Point or Change Settings, click System Protection and unchecked the D drive.  Of course I received a warning, but I continued.  It only took a few seconds before it was complete.  When I checked the D drive (start, computer), the color had returned to blue.

As a side note, I expected the bar to move further back than it did, however, it was evident free space was obtained by the numbers beneath.  They now read:  1.27 gb free as oppose to 633 mg.  Finally, I defraged.  Within a few minutes, I was notified: Defragment Not Necessary.  Your File System Performance is Good.

I must report a hickup in this little scenario.  I made the mistake and unchecked the C drive at first!  Yikes!  (Normally I would use one of the Smileys here, but I have already lost the first post I attempted to type by doing that!!!!!!)  I really thought I had wiped out my entire C drive, Oh My Gosh! Next to C drive was the word None!   When I checked my files there were there.  Yeah!  I rechecked the C drive, clicked Apply and today's date appeared.  I am not sure what I did but I know I did not lose any programs or files, I hope.

That was the end to my first experience with clearing up space on the Recovery (D) drive.

Again thank you for your support.  In the event you respond to this post, I will be taking a break from this forum for a couple of days.  I will certainly respond when I return.  And please forgive the typos.  I have found that I can lose a post just by attempting to edit them.

Hope everything is well with Hanspuppa,

Nissi1&2

Good morning Hanspuppa,

How is Mr. Hanspuppa.

I am sorry you have decided to leave.  Emotions are running high since this new and unapproved DCF came into being.  This is a place I have become accustomed to running to whenever I had a computing problem.  Not only have I had many solved, I have learned so much and I would like to think I have also assisted a few folks along the way.  It is home for me and it appears by the number of people who has taken the Poll, to many others.  Bugbatter said the new DCF is like moving into a new home.  I am beginning to feel like the designers and builders of my new home has played a cruel joke on me.:emotion-3:

I understand about the attitudes of some members.  I was racially attacked earlier this year and had to leave DCF for a tick to keep from speaking my piece.  I expected some unwanted feedback once I uploaded my avatar, but it came from people I had communicated with on several occasions.  However, I was not going to let those souls out of all the other wonderful souls I had met at the forum have the last say.

It seems you are quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers.  I know for certain you have been a big help to me.  I hope you keep that in mind.  I do not know what is happening with this new and improved DCF.  However, I do know that people like myself (yes I will be returning from time to time) will continue to need assistance from experience persons as yourself.  Case in point:

In your instructions, you wrote I should uncheck the C drive to rid it of restore points.  Since I was more concerned with the D drive, I concentrated on that drive.  When I initially unticked the C drive, I thought I had made a grave error.  Now you suggested in your last post to leave the Recovery drive unticked.  Along with the D drive being the Recovery drive, does not the Restore points reside there also?

If you have decided that your last post, is your last post and you will not be responding to the above question, please know I wish you and Hanspuppa all the best.

Continued blessings,

Nissi1&2

Hello nissi2, While I will not be posting here for others, I will check in from time to time and check for your post. That is very easy to do. Since the D: drive is the Dell Recovery Restore partition of the hard drive, it should be left unchecked so it will not have any Windows Restore Points created on it. When it was checked before, it tried to create Windows Restore Points on it.

It was not meant for this purpose. This is just another Dell oversight. The C: drive should be checked all the time, so Windows can create Restore Points for the C: drive. These are created when new programs are installed and at certain times by the OS and shown as System Checkpoints.

From time to time, I uncheck the box for the C: drive, click Apply, and the Windows Restore Points are removed in just a few seconds. Then I recheck the box for the C: drive, click Apply, and then create a new Windows Restore Point. You will be asked to name the Restore Point. Just give it a name that you can remember, example: "After Adobe Reader installed 12-06-2008 7:00 PM" without the quotation marks. The Windows Restore Point will be created.

You can close out of the System Restore Utility and reopen it and see the only Restore Point available will be the one you just created. Long explanation, but once you have done it a few times, it becomes routiene. If the D: drive is left unchecked, there will be no Restore Points created on the D: drive. With the C: drive checked, the Restore Points will be created and stored on the C: drive.

We took Mr. Hanspuppa to the Vet and had some moles and a large growth from his neck removed. He was a little groggy when he got home but is almost back to himself. These moles are common for his breed in their elderly years. Since I am as old as he, I had the Vet give me a mole check also. Just kidding.

Hope all the information above is not too confusing and helpful. I will be checking in from time to time for your post.

Thanks for you concern and Friendship.

Hello Hanspuppa,

It was a pleasant surprise to look among the duplicate notices and see a reply from you.    It is good to hear little Hanspuppa is well and that after you had a few moles removed, you are also.:emotion-2:  As we get older those things seem to pop out of nowhere.  (Just kidding, almost)

The information is very helpful, thank you.  I also appreciate the offer for future help, since finding this thread is extremely easy for me.  I maintain one of the notices to this thread and whenever I want to return here, I simply click the link in the notice.  Ah, there is a way around the madness.

I have another issue which I must inquiry about.  But to maintain uniformity with the tags, since it is a different topic, I will start a new thread.  Even in the old, much loved forum, searching a topic was sometimes difficult enough without having them combined in one post.

I am truly sorry you have decided to leave, although I understand.  I have met great people here, and they keep me coming back.  I even invited someone to be a friend.  I offer the same invitation to you and hope you go to my site and post yourself as such.

Take care of Hanspuppa and for you I pray for continued Grace and Peace,

Nissi1&2

Good morning Hanspuppa,

Thank you for the request.  I am now Nissi1 again.  I was able to straighten out the mess I got myself into.:emotion-2:  Your name has been added to Nissi2's page.  I wanted to send you an email, however, besides the comments, I could not find a way to do this.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but please send the request again to Nissi1 instead of Nissi2.  Nissi1 is the one with the avatar and it is my original account.  I will no longer be using this account; except if I cannot sign-in with Nissi1.

Thank you and give little Hanspuppa an extra hug.

Grace and Peace,

Nissi1