Laptop HD of 80 GB 90 % full and memory might be all taken.

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Guest

I want to know if I can back up my hard drive after it is already full and
not operating normally. Can I do it myself or must I take it to a computer
shop as Dell has said?

When I turn my laptop on and start windows, almost immediately, the computer
locks up. I cannot navigate and cannot shut down the computer using the START
button. The problem seems to have begun when I was working to remove digital
pictures and many other files in documents. In my effort not to lose
anything, I copied many files. I thought I would be able to move the files
to a DVD RW and I have many blanks for that purpose. The closest I get to
that now is a "balloon" message saying there are files ready to be copied to
a CD. When I try to do this, the error message comes up saying either (1)
there is no CD in the drive or (2) an explanation of what a CD is. Maybe, I
thought, I originally tried to write with a program only good for a CD, not a
DVD, but changing disks does not help.

I called Dell about the problems and after a couple of hours of trying to
correct the problem of the lockup, the technician said I would have to take
it to a computer shop, explain the problem, and have the shop back up my hard
drive. I guess this is so that Dell can tell me how to start over by
reinstalling Windows on my computer. By now, with all the problems, it
probably is a good idea to reinstall.

Not losing the entire contents of my hard drive is, of course, very
important to me.

I would welcom some advice. I would go to a shop if I am told this is the
best way, but at Christmas time the big ones are probably overwhelmed with
the job of helping people set up their new electronics. I would have to find
a shop small enough to not do that kind of work, but big enough to have
experience technicians.

I have a Maxtor hard drive for backing up, but cannot install the software
on the laptop.

Thanks George
 
If you cannot start the laptop, you would have to remove the hd and place it
in an external case, then connect that to a second PC to copy the files.
Whether you are capable of doing that, only you know.
Ideally you should have had a backup regime in place at the start.
 
George

These are my suggestions.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk cleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point.

If running Disk CleanUp fails turn off System Restore. Right click
your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, System
Restore and place a check before Turn off System Restore on all
drives. Click on OK and exit. If Disk CleanUp succeeds move on to my
next suggestion

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700
mb. Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select
Properties, System Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select
Settings and the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb
and exit. When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK
and exit. This will create 8.9 gb free disk space.

If your hard drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises
with your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory
of your C partition you will have some uninstall folders in your
Windows folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and
$NtUninstallKB282010$ etc. These files may be compressed or not
compressed. If compressed the text of the folder name appears in blue
characters. If not compressed you can compress them. Right click on
each folder and select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box
before Compress contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you
can see the amount gained by deducting the size on disk from the size.
Folder compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive /
partition.

Another default setting on a large drive which could be wasteful is
that for temporary internet files especially if you do not store
offline copies on disk. The default allocation is 3% of drive.
Depending on your attitude to offline copies you could reduce this to
1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer select Tools, Internet Options,
General, Temporary Internet Files, Settings to make the change. At the
same time look at the number of days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. On your
drive 5% should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor on
your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and move
the slider from 10% to 5%. Another 4 gb free disk space.

Whenever you remove redundant files you should always run Disk
Defragmenter by selecting Start, All Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

Finally right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select
Properties, System Restore and uncheck the box before Turn off System
Restore on all drives. Click on OK and exit.

There are further way to create more free disk space but the
suggestions above should create enough free working disk space to
enable to back up to CD.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Thanks for the advice. I tried to follow the suggestions and the HD drive
became slower and slower. Whatever was the problem, it became clear that even
extra-ordinary means to free up space were not going to help. I finally did
take it in to one of the big stores and had it fixed over in four or five
days. If you look at the question and answers of mine on January 2, 2007 in
the English XP maintanance threads, you will see that I went through some
agony with the reinstall, as well. Probably all this started with a problem
with the actual hard drive. At least the technician said it did not pass the
required tests to show it was good and would have to be replaced.

Even though the HD is still under warrenty I opted to finish the work and
pay for it myself. My warrenty is good for another year and I hope the
problems with this poorly designed and manufactured computer will be over by
that time. In any event Dell dropped the model soon after it was introduced
(I wonder why?) and I will look for another laptop. It is almost funny, but
by now every major part of the computer, except the entire keyboard, has been
replaced at least once. I have to call Dell now and tell them the plastic
case around the screen is broken and needs to be replaced by them! As I
said, it is almost funny.

Good thing I bought their super warrenty that covers everything from
practically every cause or it would not seem even a little funny.

Regards, Thanks for your help, George
 
Thanks DL, I did have to take it in to a shop. See my reply down below. If
you want to see the final result of all this, it is in windows XP
maintanance_performance.

George
 
For anyone having similar problems, I would like to say that while most of my
files were saved after this HD situation, some irreplacable photos were lost.
Even though a backup was done before the hard disc was replaced, I could not
find these photos on the backup.

One lesson learned was that I should not have attempted any "recovery" from
the backup using software that is generally available to users. Instead, I
would have done better sending the drive to Maxtor's (the drive manufacturer)
recovery service. Later I finally did that, but the photos I wanted were not
found.

Many of my photos were moved from the camera's disc and made into a CD and
photos while I was traveling. For some reason, I missed some pictures using
this process. At the end of a long trip I moved the photos on the camera to
the hard drive and apparently left them there.

The odd thing is that photos taken at the beginning and the end of one
segment of my travels were lost, but some inbetween were not.

I will be more careful in the future, particularly with photos.

George.
 
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