What is the "factory image" drive?

[voyager]

I tried to install a program and got the message that I had no memory.  But I've only use a small fraction of my 4 gig HP drive, but I see there is something called the "factory image drive" about 1.5 gigs that is nearly full.  What is the "factory image drive" and is this preventing me from installing my program?

[SaneMadness]

The Factory Image D drive is the recovery partiton on the computer, you need to save your programs to the C drive. The D drive only has enough space on it to hold the recovery information and little else, you will need to use recovery discs to get the information that you saved to the D out of there since you can go into the D drive and delete anything.

[grama]

  I am a computer dummy, so I might ask some pretty stupid questions.  My D Drive is almost full and I have 85% free space on C.  Why are things saved on D Drive instead of C and how do I change that?  I have several purple files along with other files on D Drive and don't know what to delete-Even have recycle bin on D-don't know how it got there.

[SaneMadness]

The D drive, since it holds a mirror image of your operating system, it will always almost be full. Nothing you have installed on the computer or files you have added to the computer are in the D drive its only the operating system and the programs that were on your computer when you opened it and took it out of the box.

Do not delete ay files from the D drive - it is there incase you need to re-load your Windows and original content onto the computer. if you take things out or ad things into it the recovery Partiton D drive will not work properly. 

[grama]

I am confused.  When I purchased the computer, D Drive was not even half full and now, as I said before, it is about 85% full.  If  none of my filesw are going there, why does it seem to keep getting fuller?

[SaneMadness]

Are you making sure that you are saving files to the C drive and not the D drive

[dahjwb1960]

I think I understand the purpose of the factory image 😧 My question is that when I upgraded to windows 7 the factory image was only about 20%, after the upgrade I am at about 99%. I get prompted to clean up the drive but when I go to the auto wizard it tells me there is nothing that I can delete?

I also made a backup on my external hardrive prior to the upgrade as instructed. My pictures & music  migrated and open properly, but my documents don't. The file is there but it doesn't know what to open them with? I had Microsoft works etc on the Vista OS. I thought that when I did the upgrade that everything would migrate properly? How do get apps off my back up version of Vista OS and get onto Windows 7 OS?

[Atswick]

Hi, I need some EXPERT help with little problem. Some how a virus has worked its way on to my computer . The particular virus causes an error message to pop up that says  " windows explore has stopped working" it keeps popping up every minute. Another side affect of this virus is when I boot up the computer, after the loading bar the screen wil sometimes stay black, So I end up having to reboot the computer. Then when I log in to my profile it sometimes stays black so I end having to hit "ctrl alt delete" and log off and then log back on then it will make it past the black screen. Would it be possible to take this virus down by using the restore drive "D'' to restore my operating system or do I have to reload the operating system (aka Windows Vista)?

[joserrato]

when recovering the system with the recovery factory discs, it will reinstall the software as it was delivered from the Factory.  To ensure that you get rid of any virus, you can select the option to format the drive and install the factory software.

Please make sure you back up all your files before you run recovery, as these will all get erased.  the virus should be gone after the recovery.  To avoid future problems with virus, it's recommended that some type of virus protection software be installed.

[RasterBlaster]

Recovery would reload everything... including te OS. If you upgraded to Windows 7 and you do an HP System Recovery, you will have to re-upgrade to Windows 7... but this process does kill all/most viruses.