Recovery disk D is a small partition on your hard drive and not for you to use for backup or anything else. It is only for system recovery. Backup instructions: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=36933BDB4EF95610E040A68F5B287F42&journalid=3FFF61B76AE780D1E040A68F27285723&Query=YmFja3VwKw==&SystemID=&ServiceTag=&contenttype=-1&os=-1&component=-1&lang=-1&doclang=en&toggle=false

Thank you for your reply Mary, however, I still  have a full Recovery D drive and am wondering if there's a way possible I can remedy this.  I have Vista Home Basic, so I can not set up automatic back ups.  I have never used Vista until this past week (the software asks you which drive you wish to back up to....and drive "Recovery Disk: D" is a selection given).

Hi

This may help you also read the link !

What the D:\Recovery partition is and how to use it but not for backups it is to small

for a good C:\ backup !

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&message.id=45419#M45419

 

Good Luck !

Thank you Mary for the link, but once again, I can NOT set up automatic back up with Vista Home Basic. 

 

Being new to Vista, I was not sure if you had to actually  back up to drive D first and then to another drive.  No other Windows OS that I've ever had had a recovery drive in it before.......all new to me.

 

 

Thank you Mombo.........problem solved now!  :smileywink:

This is not true. It does no good to backup to the same hard drive. When/if the drive fails, the backup is gone. That partition is for the Recovery procedure to restore the system image. Dell recommends you backup to an external storage media such as an external drive or network storage. http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=36933BDB4EF95610E040A68F5B287F42

 

Gee Mary, Dell set it up to use D as a backup destination, nothing to do with the user.

 

 

See if this thread helps

 

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&message.id=31488

Vista will not allow you to backup to the same drive. That would be useless when the drive fails. Read C3PO's post and look up Backup in Help for more info. You did understand that you must not use that partition for Backups, didn't you? You have to have an external hard drive, a different internal hard drive or some other external storage such as Network or Online storage or you cannot set up Automatic Backup.

Mary........I am not a techie, nor am I an idiot!  I realize the purpose of backing up is because if your computer fails (i.e. You can not access anything on your computer) you would need an external source of back up!  I have already backed up with with 2 different on-line services if I can't access my DVD if the need to do so happens. 

 

What I realize now, happened after the fact.

 

Thank you.

 

Thank you everybody for helping me..........the problem appears solved.

Mary,

Do you actually READ the questions, or do you actually USE Vista?. The OP asked NOTHING about automatic backups, but you keep harping on this. As well, if you have ever tried Vista's native backup and restore applet, you would know that the DEFAULT backup location for files and folders is D:\Recovery.

 

Yes - the user should change this destination, but many users are not even aware of the Recovery partition and this would seem, however incorrect, like a logical place to keep backups. The OP in this case was simply accepting Vista's default recommendation.