Recovery D too full, unable to fix

[Vanderlyle]

Hi,

I'm having issues with constant reminders that my Recovery D is full. It's 19.1GB and has 3mb of space left. I've already looked on this forum and the advise of 'just leave it don't delete anything etc' isn't good enough and I need more help. I've tried everything - chkdsk etc and found no issues. I recently upgraded to Windows 10- which I've now reversed back to 8.1 to see if that could help but it's still the same - I know that's not really logical but since the issues only occured afterward I've tried everything to stop myself from being driven up the wall by it, that includes reverting back.

The main issue is I cannot see the files in the partitions to know what's taking up all this space, the only thing I need on recovery is the system recovery, nothing else, so I don't understand why it needs to be so big. Yes I've checked 'show hidden files' and unchecked anything that would stop me from not being able to see the files, but that only brings up some detail on the recovery drive. I can then not see into those files -HP, RECOVERY, PRELOAD, BOOT, EFI... you get the picture - and I cannot see individually how big they are.

I wouldn't mind if the annoying 'your recovery drive is full' didn't keep pinging up, yes I've gone into control panel and tried to stop it but everytime I log back on again it starts doing it over and over.

I've thought about completely deleting it, the only thing that's stopped me is I don't have a big enough usb available (over 32gb) to create a usb recovery...and I'm not that much of a risk taker to delete it with having no system back up.

There must be something that can be done? I've searched the web and there's not one site/forum I can find that has been able to assist.

Ideas?

[Jay_101]

Greetings,

Well, you can use MS Disk Management console or third party disk management software.

Shrink the C:\ drive by a couple of GB's. Then expand the D:\ drive using the GB's gained from the C:\drive.

You must be adding files to D. Unless you migrated to an SSD or a smaller HDD. There is no logical reason for the empty space on the D:\  to decrease without cause.

Cheers!

[erico]

Did you create a recovery flashdrive?

Have you checked in system protection to ensure that the 😧 Recovery partition does not have protection turned on?

That is usuually the only reason the partition would become full and red in clolor in the Windows explorer. The other reason would be that someon had inadvertently saved files to the parttition.

[Vanderlyle]

Hi, thanks but tried this already and it's protection was already off

[Vanderlyle]

Cheers, I'll try this and hope for the best. Still doesn't really answer why it's taking up 19gb worth of space but I suppose it's a temporary fix, if files are being added to but don't need to I have no idea why and how to stop it?

[Jay_101]

Greetings,

Check "Folder Options" in Control Panel, select "View" , tick " Show Hidden Files, Folders, or Drives".

You may find some hidden stuff. 

Some program or file save pointer is adding stuff to this partition.

Cheers!

[erico]

@Jay_101

Please refrain from asking members to modify their recovery partitions when you are not  absolutely certain they have already created a recovery flashdrive.

Any changes to the partition will stop it from being useable from power on with an F11 keystroke.

That would be a bad thing for most HP notebook owners. 

[Vanderlyle]

Do you have any ideas to fix my issue then erico?

[doughjohn]

Hi

Not sure if this helps, but if the Recovery is done immediately after install is it below 16 gig (before it fills up to 19)?

Otherwise it is about 8 DVD's (or 3 x 9 DVD).

Now mine is

12.1 GB (12,985,878,637)

231 Files, 121 sub-folders

Inside my \Recovery\ Preload     are

-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 416390355 Jul 31  2015 Build.wim
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root        67 May 23  2010 Desktop.ini
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root         0 Feb 13 18:37 FactoryUpdate
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root         0 Feb 13 18:38 RM_PATCH
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root         0 Feb 13 18:38 RM_Reserve
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root        16 Feb 13 18:30 install.ini
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 307451230 Feb 13 18:37 install.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 289712539 Feb 13 18:37 install10.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 296247529 Feb 13 18:37 install11.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 301853635 Feb 13 18:37 install12.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  90343633 Feb 13 18:37 install13.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 403369433 Feb 13 18:37 install14.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   3091693 Feb 13 18:37 install15.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 391198054 Feb 13 18:37 install16.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 312719432 Feb 13 18:37 install17.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 305200740 Feb 13 18:37 install18.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314046836 Feb 13 18:37 install19.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 313253984 Feb 13 18:37 install2.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314439741 Feb 13 18:37 install20.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314471836 Feb 13 18:37 install21.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314317454 Feb 13 18:37 install22.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 244231099 Feb 13 18:37 install23.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 334285253 Feb 13 18:37 install24.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 313470184 Feb 13 18:37 install25.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314563441 Feb 13 18:37 install26.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314399744 Feb 13 18:37 install27.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 283108993 Feb 13 18:37 install28.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 308745039 Feb 13 18:37 install29.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 259372309 Feb 13 18:37 install3.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 159652566 Feb 13 18:37 install30.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 312573487 Feb 13 18:37 install31.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 255786511 Feb 13 18:37 install32.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 311406323 Feb 13 18:37 install33.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 281239291 Feb 13 18:37 install34.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 306904056 Feb 13 18:37 install35.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 228622931 Feb 13 18:37 install36.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 244803126 Feb 13 18:37 install37.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 142333331 Feb 13 18:37 install38.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 220521336 Feb 13 18:37 install39.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 245741099 Feb 13 18:37 install4.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 268437948 Feb 13 18:37 install40.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 268437948 Feb 13 18:37 install41.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 171751557 Feb 13 18:37 install42.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314539934 Feb 13 18:37 install43.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 314508488 Feb 13 18:37 install44.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 313870992 Feb 13 18:37 install5.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 174677360 Feb 13 18:37 install6.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 276190709 Feb 13 18:37 install7.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 298562280 Feb 13 18:37 install8.swm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 295983691 Feb 13 18:37 install9.swm

So is this the kind of thing you are looking for on your own system?

[Jay_101]

Hi erico,

That's interesting. Have you verified this on one of your systems?

I cloned a HDD to a smaller SSD. The proportional sizing of the recovery partition on the SSD caused the same symptom.

Resized the partitions to solve the problem. Also performed a boot recovery using the SSD (F11) with no issues. To clarify, the PC options at purchase included the same size SSD I used for cloning and to test the recovery. I chose the 2 TB HDD option at purchase as SSD prices were much higher then. Bought it about two and a half years ago.

I did also have a 32 GB flash drive containing the factory image as a backup.

So I am not on board with you on this. I believe any mod of the recovery data structure would be a bad thing but the total size of the partition containing recovery data seems to have no  negative effect. The obvious exception is if the partition was too small. This is also something which could not happen without damaging recovery data in the container.

So, at least in my case, increasing the recovery partition size caused no ill effects.

Cheers!