Need to make a back up copy of files i keep getting this running out of space on recovery d so i want to make a back up copy and it says n o disc do i insert the disc in the top part that opens on my drive or is there a hole i dont see this message is driving me nuts every time i try to back up files it fails this is why i have a disc and now it still fails what am i doing wrong im thinking vista is the problem

Are you sure the files are going in there? Many times the manufacturers only allocate the size that they need partitioned on that drive. I have seen many cases where that drive is full from factory and people always get that message.

1. Click Start and right-click Computer .
2. Select Properties .
3. Click System Protection from the left side of the Window.
4. In the section "Automatic restore points", remove the selection next to the D: drive, and then click OK . If the D: drive was not selected, close this window. Figure 3: System Protection tab with D: drive unselected
   
5. Right-click Start Explore All Users .
6. Before you can remove the backup files and folders, you need to be able to view hidden system files as follows:
   1. From the explorer window press the Alt key on the keyboard to make the menu bar appear in the window.
   2. From the file menu, click Tools , and then select Folder Options .
   3. Select the View tab.
   4. Select Show hidden files and folders , remove the selection from Hide protected operating system files and then click OK .
7. From the Folder Options window in explorer, double-click Recovery (D:) .
8. If a Window opens stating "You don't currently have permission to access this folder" opens. Click Continue .
9. If you previously copied or created any files into Recovery (D:) and you want to keep them, copy them to another drive - such as the C: drive.
10. Find and delete any files that you previously copied onto the Recovery (D:) drive.
    CAUTION:Do not delete any files that are associated to recovery! Do not delete the items RECOVERY, $RECYCLE.BIN, boot, hp, PC-Doctor, pcdr, or PRELOAD! Doing so can prevent a future system recovery from the hard drive. If you are not sure, do not delete the file.
    Press Shift + Delete to permanently remove the files.
    To delete files created from MS Backup (MS Backup files are not recovery files), find and delete the folder with the same name as the computer name in the Recovery (D:) partition. For example if the computer name is BOB-PC, the folder containing the backup files would be named BOB-PC and would be deleted.
    
11. Several confirmation windows open. Click Continue , and Yes until the folder is deleted.
12. To set Windows Folder Options back to their original setting as follows:
    1. From the explorer window press Alt to view the file menu.
    2. Click Tools , and then select Folder Options .
    3. Select do not show hidden files and folders and select Hide protected operating system files .
    4. Click OK .
13. Close explorer. The Out of Disk Space errors should no longer appear. If you would like to use the Microsoft Backup Tool again, open it and select a different external backup device to store the backup files on.

If you have lost the CD you can try to do a factory reset from the recovery partition. Make sure you haven't formatted or deleted any partition in the computer since your purchase.

Using the Recovery Partition to perform Recovery.



First turn off your computer
Turn on the system and keep tapping the F11 key
system will boot into recovery partition. Follow the instructions below:

1. Boot into Gateway System Recovery - Press F11 to Start Recovery.
   
2. On the System Recovery Menu screen, press the ALT+D keys.
   
3. At the command prompt, type: D: and then press ENTER.
   
4. At the D:\ prompt, type: CD Windows\i386 and then press ENTER.
   
5. At the C:\Windows\I386 prompt, type: dir filename.* and then press ENTER.
   
6. Verify if the file name has an underscore ( _ ) in the extension. Example: appwiz.cp_. If the file has an underscore, it has to be expanded. If it does not have an underscore, the file can be copied without expansion.
   
7. If file has an underscore, expand the file to the destination. At the command prompt, type: Expand filename.**_ C:\Destination. Example: Expand appwiz.cp_ C:\Windows\System32
   
8. If file does not have an underscore, copy the file to the destination. At the command prompt, type: Copy filename C:\Destination. Example: Copy atmadm C:\Windows\System32
   
9. At the command prompt, type: Exit.
   
10. Once back at the menu, click Quit. The computer restarts.

It should be reset to Factory settings.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY RECOVERY PARTITION OR HAVE DELETED THE PARTITION THEN PLEASE REVERT SO THAT I CAN HELP YOU TO GET A RECOVERY DISC.

Thank you for using Fixya..!!

* It is not necessary to back up ur data. U can simply run the Windows 7 upgrade, it will not delete ur files and folders. It will only replace the windows and system files.

** If u want to back up ur data then simply copy ur all data to another partition except C drive (System Drive) and then install a fresh copy of windows 7 and by format only c partition.

*** If there is only a single partition, then simply copy all your necessary data to CD/DVD aur pen drive aur any external hard drive and install a fresh copy.

**** U can also use Partition Magic to make two partition by cutting some space from C drive in case of only one partition.

use your xp disk, boot from cd then rather format, select the F option to repair.
it will rewrite your windows folder without deleting other personal folders

The below fix may or may not work but needs to be followed closely.

1. Boot the Recovery disc or HDD image and select System Recovery Options.
2. Follow the prompts until you get to the menu and then select a command prompt.
3. Copy the \zzimages\zzimages directory for all recovery discs to a temp directory on the hard drive (c:\temp).
4. Change to the Bin directory on the first recovery disc and run "tosimagex /apply c:\temp\preinst.swm 1 c:\ /ref c:\temp\preinst*.swm" without the quotes.

That is it. It will take a long time to copy the files since they are large and a long time to run the image program, half an hour on my computer. Also, based on Imagex syntax, it looks like the "1" in the command above might be replaced with another number for models that come with more then one Windows version on the same recovery media.

Unfortunately you will need to do exactly what it states, which is free up some space. Defragging a drive requires there to be an ample amount of "swap space" available so that it can move files into that 15% of space while it rearragnes the placement of other files and puts them back in an order which will provide faster access to the files after the defrag is complete. being that it is your D: drive, can't you just move some files to your C: drive to make enough space for the defrag??

Please be sure to rate this solution.

Regards,

Joe

If the disc is formatted to FAT32. You will be limited to 4GB files. NTFS is limited to 16 exibytes. Which is huge even by todays standards. 

You do NOT need to defrag the recovery partition. The contents of that partition are most likely in a compressed form, and in any case, unchanging, so do not require a defrag. It's a good idea to leave the recovery partition absolutely alone.

For future reference, if you need to defragment a normal partition in low space conditions, try something advanced like Diskeeper 2008. Diskeeper is the best and most powerful defragmenter, and can defragment drives with even less than 5-10% free disk space. By comparison, the windows defragger requires atleast 15%, and yet does not defrag system files.

Yes, you will need a fresh copy of a OS/boot your machine with cd in tray and follow instructions/then place recov cd in tray/go to my computer and right click/cd and explore/look for drivers and install alon with any onther software you need

The "recovery drive" is pre-installed by HP, and usually only uses about 12 GB (+/-) of your space. It is essential not to disturb that drive. Now, I will explain what these terms mean.

"Backup" means to create a copy (often compressed) of the data on your PC, such that if your system were to crash - at the catastrophic end of the reasons for backup - you would be able to get back that data, or "recover" the data. So, backup is to make a copy of data and recovery is the process of restoring that same data onto a machine when it is necessary to bring the machine or data back to its earlier state.

For instance, say you got a virus that wiped out critical operating system files on your PC, and it wouldn't work. However, you have backed that PC up onto some external media. You then use that backup data to restore your PC to the state it was in at the time of the backup - just like it was before the virus hit!

HP's recovery drive is there because manufacturers do not include recovery discs with PC purchases any more. (Though they call it a drive, it is not really a separate drive. It is simply a partition of your actual one hard drive which is separated and labeled with a different drive letter.) The purpose of the recovery drive is twofold, with the primary reason for its existence being to provide you with a way to return your PC to the same state it was in when it shipped.

First, when you initially receive your PC, you should follow the instructions to create recovery discs. This should have been detailed in your setup guide. It is important to do this before there is any chance of the drive becoming corrupted or otherwise changed. However, be aware that HP only allows you to create these discs one time (it is preset in the software) - so you must take extra precaution with those discs because they can not be created again from the system.

In this fashion, you would be able to use the external discs to restore your computer to factory condition if some catastrophe struck and you needed to return your machine to its original condition. (Be aware, however, this is NOT a replacement for backing up, as it will cause you to lose any files, customization, options, settings, etc., that you have placed on the machine.)

Second, and working hand-in-hand with the first, the recovery drive's intention is to allow you to restore to factory state without having to go to your recovery discs. This is much faster, as it only has to read and write within the same disc drive - as opposed to reading and writing from an external disc, which is much slower and more cumbersome.

Now, it looks like you have a 100GB hard drive on your machine, which is really a pretty good size drive. Since you are asking about freeing up space, it sounds as though perhaps you are running short of space. Is this right? If you are really nearing capacity with the 100GB drive, we should explore ways to clean up your drive and perhaps offload sizeable files that you may not really need to have online all the time. There could also be certain system processes to be run that are designed to clear away "junk" that builds up over time.

Please post back if you need further help. Otherwise, thank you for using and rating FixYa!