Can full disk space destroy your PC?

Green Blockhead · Apr 28, 2011

I always got advice from my dad saying that my computer needs disk space to think and if it got too full it would, well, no longer live.

So does full disk space, when you absaloutely have no space left, kill your PC? :eek:

Shadowjk · Apr 28, 2011

What Planet is your dad on? (Joking

)

That is not true the Life of your Compter Depends on If you Write/Move Data on it often (Defragmenting) Or if you use High CPU Usage programs Constantly

But Simple Answer is No it will not Kill Your computer

Josh

whs · Apr 28, 2011

If your disk is too full, there are certain operations you may not be able to do - e.g. defrag. You may also have problems installing programs or updates. I would leave 20% free space on the C partition. If that is not possible, buy a larger disk (they are really cheap) and transfer your stuff (e.g. via an image). But your system will not die, don't worry.

ChaosDark · Apr 28, 2011

If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

whs · Apr 28, 2011

ChaosDark said:
If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

Be careful here. The D partition may be the recovery partition ( certainly if is an OEM installation) and nothing is supposed to be moved there. Better to use an external drive or a big USB stick.

ilikefree · Apr 28, 2011

whs said:
ChaosDark said:

If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

Click to expand...

Be careful here. The D partition may be the recovery partition ( certainly if is an OEM installation) and nothing is supposed to be moved there. Better to use an external drive or a big USB stick.

I agree, my D drive is the DVD/Rom. External drive is better

t-4-2 · Apr 29, 2011

Peter Hurry said:
I always got advice from my dad saying that my computer needs disk space to think and if it got too full it would, well, no longer live.

So does full disk space, when you absaloutely have no space left, kill your PC? :eek:

You already have been answered about whether it will kill your pc if your disk space is full. So, I won't bore you with that.

Something you might want to know and clarify.....

1. Disk defragmentation will help improve your pc's performance. It will NOT help you regain disk space.

2. Do disk cleanup regularly will help you regain disk space. You shouldn't be facing warning about " full disk space ", if you do that regularly.
Here is the tutorial :
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76073-disk-cleanup.html

The tutorial consists of 2 parts......
From step1 to 11 .... it is for regular disk cleanup. It will give you back some disk space.
From step 12 to the end ..... it is to remove all restore points except the most recent one. That will give you back tons of disk space.
Note : before you run step 12, make sure there are no problems with your computer. Because, there will be no more " old " restore point to fall back to if you want to do system restore, until new restore points are created.

Green Blockhead · Apr 29, 2011

whs said:
ChaosDark said:

If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

Click to expand...

Be careful here. The D partition may be the recovery partition ( certainly if is an OEM installation) and nothing is supposed to be moved there. Better to use an external drive or a big USB stick.

I have an external hard drive. I plug it in so my computer backups my files every night at 9:00pm British Time. It fails when it's not plugged in but this is ok.

Also, don't worry. The D drive is called DATAPART1. I have an E drive and that is called RECOVERY.

Normally I only worry about the OS C drive. Right now the bar (I am using Vista) is red and there is only a small bit of white. It's capacity is 222gb and it has like 5gb left.

I did a disk cleanup but it changed nothing, even though it said that if I did a disk cleanup it would free 3gb. It just cleared what I chose, and then closed down without saying anything.

Then there's another problem: I can't be bothered to ask someone who knows the administrator password to enter it everytime I uninstall a program. I turned UAC (user account control) off but then instead of prompting me for the password it just gave me error messages saying that I don't have the administrative rights for it. This is what I hate about all the operating systems after XP.

t-4-2 · Apr 29, 2011

>>>I did a disk cleanup but it changed nothing, even though it said that if I did a disk cleanup it would free 3gb. It just cleared what I chose, and then closed down without saying anything.

Perhaps you don't mind reading the Disk Cleanup tutorial again. Starting at Step #12 where you are required to click More Options.

>>>I can't be bothered to ask someone who knows the administrator password to enter it everytime I uninstall a program.

Pardon my contradiction. How did you manage to do Disk Cleanup if you don't have admin password ?

Green Blockhead · Apr 29, 2011

t-4-2 said:
Pardon my contradiction. How did you manage to do Disk Cleanup if you don't have admin password ?

You only need to enter the admin password when you want to clean up all files on the computer. You don't need it if your only doing your own files only.

t-4-2 · Apr 29, 2011

Peter Hurry said:
t-4-2 said:

Pardon my contradiction. How did you manage to do Disk Cleanup if you don't have admin password ?

Click to expand...

You only need to enter the admin password when you want to clean up all files on the computer. You don't need it if your only doing your own files only.

I see.
In that case, the issues you mentioned are beyond your control.
You are not the admin and nothing you can do about it. Sorry.

Green Blockhead · Apr 29, 2011

t-4-2 said:
Peter Hurry said:

t-4-2 said:

Pardon my contradiction. How did you manage to do Disk Cleanup if you don't have admin password ?

Click to expand...

You only need to enter the admin password when you want to clean up all files on the computer. You don't need it if your only doing your own files only.

Click to expand...

I see.
In that case, the issues you mentioned are beyond your control.
You are not the admin and nothing you can do about it. Sorry.

The rest of my family knows the password so I can ask them to put it in everytime I ask.

I shall take this matter into another thread.

t-4-2 · Apr 29, 2011

Peter Hurry said:
t-4-2 said:

Peter Hurry said:

You only need to enter the admin password when you want to clean up all files on the computer. You don't need it if your only doing your own files only.

Click to expand...

I see.
In that case, the issues you mentioned are beyond your control.
You are not the admin and nothing you can do about it. Sorry.

Click to expand...

The rest of my family knows the password so I can ask them to put it in everytime I ask.

I shall take this matter into another thread.

There is no another way around it.
Get hold of the admin password if you want to do the followings ....

1. Regain disk space for the OS drive by running DiskCleanup as the tutorial instructed.... from step #1 to step #14.

2. Install or uninstall programs.Turning off UAC won't do.

ChaosDark · Apr 29, 2011

whs said:
ChaosDark said:

If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

Click to expand...

Be careful here. The D partition may be the recovery partition ( certainly if is an OEM installation) and nothing is supposed to be moved there. Better to use an external drive or a big USB stick.

Think it varies from computer to computer. My D:/ drive can be used for storage (It was completely empty from the start and I believe it wasn't needed for recovery as it came with a recovery disc [which now I have no idea where it is hiding now that I think about it])

Also @OP, if the drive says DATAPART1 and another says Recovery, see if you can move a few items to that DATAPART1 drive to see if anything happens. Just make a backup in case.

Green Blockhead · Apr 29, 2011

ChaosDark said:
whs said:

ChaosDark said:

If your Dad is so paranoid, try moving your videos, pictures, etc to either the D:/ Drive (Probably labeled Data). Saves a good amount of space on your C:/ drive which is used to store data on the OS and programs etc. That D;/ drive can be used for your own personal stuff.

And definably do a defragment to fix up any errors and disk cleanup to clear out some stuff

And BTW, I believe it is the processor that really does the "thinking". The hard drive really only does recall and and retrieve type things.

Click to expand...

Be careful here. The D partition may be the recovery partition ( certainly if is an OEM installation) and nothing is supposed to be moved there. Better to use an external drive or a big USB stick.

Click to expand...

Think it varies from computer to computer. My D:/ drive can be used for storage (It was completely empty from the start and I believe it wasn't needed for recovery as it came with a recovery disc [which now I have no idea where it is hiding now that I think about it])

Also @OP, if the drive says DATAPART1 and another says Recovery, see if you can move a few items to that DATAPART1 drive to see if anything happens. Just make a backup in case.

I don't think any changes to the disk space have been made.

I think of it this way: Imagine that the PC is the whole word. All the files on it are the people living on it. Deleting one file means killing a person. There are 6 billion people in the world, and deleting one file won't affect the population. Nor does a few or even a thousand, it is still not going to affect the population of 6 billion.

That's how I imagined it. Big world, small files, won't make a difference

Shadowjk · Apr 30, 2011

Computers are slightly different and the small files rely on other files etc...

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