Old Laptop with Windows 7 / D Drive Full

[quintabelina]

I have an old HP Pavilion Laptop, it's been a good one but it was getting kind of slow so I upgraded to Windows 7. Works fine except for a couple of things..... My DVD drive is no longer being recognized so it doesn't work.... and for a while my Recovery Drive D has been giving me messages that it's full but I can't figure out how to clear it... can I? Another weird one is that when I type emails (or this entry) my cursor keeps jumping around and going to earlier lines so I can't just keep typing... pretty much bugs me and never did it before under XP.....

I've cleaned up my programs, deleted all the old stuff off, taken off my documents (from way back which I still need now and then, onto a Flash Drive (thinking about getting an external drive) and no, I can't afford a new computer, just to make this one a little better, ok? I keep it pretty clean, do Online BackUp (Mozy) and have Avast Antivirus. I don't play online games and pretty much just check email, use Open Office 3.0, surf the Net and shop sometimes, I keep two food related blogs and keep some photos. Can you guys help me with my issues please? No one I know has ever cleaned up a Recovery Disk.... Thanxs

[caperjack]

the recovery drive is for winxp recovery, correct ,has nothing to do with win7 recovery ,correct .what i don't understands is how can it be getting full,whats on besides the winxp recovery files

i have similar computer .i installed win7 on c:\ ,i know i'll never want to reinstall winxp so i formatted the recovery D:\'deleting all files on it , using disk manager in win7 i made the hdd all one partition

[caperjack]

oh, and you keyboard problems may be a driver issue'
what model # laptop is it

[quintabelina]

the recovery drive is for winxp recovery, correct ,has nothing to do with win7 recovery ,correct .what i don't understands is how can it be getting full,whats on besides the winxp recovery files

i have similar computer .i installed win7 on c:\ ,i know i'll never want to reinstall winxp so i formatted the recovery D:\'deleting all files on it , using disk manager in win7 i made the hdd all one partition

This is what the Recovery Disk contains: the files are:
laptop1 has a data file back up 349.78MB - System Image 0 bytes - Other files 7.32GB
Free Space 3.66MB - Total size 7.66 GB

1 backup file on 5/1/11 349.78MB

Recovery file which is empty

SMRTNTKY with a device file 1KB - FCW 22KB - Msg B 1KB - WSetting 1KB - WSetting.WFC 1KB

Autorun file 1KB

MediaID.Bin 1KB

SetupSNK 28KB

That's it..... it's full..... I went into the recovery and looked at the backups you're supposedly able to delete but there's just the one.....

[jingda]

Update all your drivers first.

[caperjack]

its a mistake a lot of people make,putting files/backups in the recovery partition,what you do to fix this drive if running out of space is up to you now

[quintabelina]

its a mistake a lot of people make,putting files/backups in the recovery partition,what you do to fix this drive if running out of space is up to you now

This is the way the computer was set up when I got it. People who are not familiar with the inner workings of laptops usually trust that the manufacturer knows what is best for their equipment so I left it alone. I also asked around and was told to leave it be.

Thank you so much for your very helpful reply. I'm sure many people appreciate all your helpful advise.

[caperjack]

your welcome and good luck

[quintabelina]

oh, and you keyboard problems may be a driver issue'
what model # laptop is it

HP Pavilion DV5000 (ET800UA#ABA) X86-based

[Reverend Jim]

The recovery partition allows you to reset the computer back to the state it was in when it was purchased. I do free tech support for several people (friends/relatives). Lately this has consisted of installing Windows 7, then rescuing them when they destroy their system with crapware/trojans/etc. The steps I usually go through are:

1) full backup
2) wipe all partitions
3) create 40 gig C (system) partition and remainder of drive as D
4) install and configure Windows 7
5) apply all updates
6) create a disk image (I use Acronis)
7) install user apps and my choice of free apps/tools
8) create another system image
9) restore user data files to D partition

When the system gets trashed I just restore the latest C image, apply all updates since the last image then take a new image. For me, this is easier and more reliable than the recovery partition because I only ever have to configure once and apply only incremental updates. I also keep one image on the D drive and a copy on an external drive. The first image (Win 7 and updates with no apps) fits nicely on a DVD for the case when everything else fails. This way, the user is also protected if they have a hard drive failure (in which case a recovery partition would be useless anyway).

You only need the recovery partition if you want to get back to "factory".