Hardrives..what To Do All Memory Used ???

[kloofnek]

I have just been checking my laptop for any updates etc.

I saw this and wonder if some kind person will explain it to me (in simple jargon,please) also when a drive is full...what happens?

(C:) 906.8GB (819.45 GB free)

(D:) 20.55GB (2.22 GB free)

(E:) 3.96GB (1.08GB free)

[woofgang]

had you got a disc in the drive when you checked? 3 drives on a laptop is unusual

[rsvp]

I would assume the first number of 906.8GB refers to the capacity and the second number in brackets 819.45GB indicates the amount of capacity still remaining for us on, in this case, the C drive.
No idea what happens when a drive is full, sorry.

[woofgang]

When a drive is full, if you try to load something on it, you will be told that there is no room.

[hc4361]

Just to say all your memory is not used - the C drive is mostly unused.

I expect what you really have is one hard drive with three partitions.

[kloofnek]

No disc in.This laptoptop as a separate graphics drive for playing games so as not to take up memory from the other drive.

It says :
Local Disk:C
Recovery Disk:D
HP_ Tools :E

[kloofnek]

Woolf...what would one do then?

[hc4361]

You should be backing up all your files - photos, videos, music, documents etc - to a separate, external hard drive in case your hard drive files.

If your hard drive ever does get full, you would need to delete unwanted programs and files to free up space or add a larger hard drive.

[kloofnek]

Thank you hc4..did think it could be something like that.

[bhg481]

You have a 1TB hard drive, split into 3 partitions, so it looks to you like you have 3 discs.

Your main disc is c: On there are all your programs and data.

Disc D: is created automatically by HP and contains information needed to restore your laptop if things go wrong with it. DO NOT MESS WITH THIS DISC.

Disc E: is created automatically by HP and contains some HP tools. This is a very small disc and should not be messed about with.

Your C; disc is quite (more than most people have) and is largely empty, so you have plenty of space to load more programs and data.

As hc4361 says, you would be wise to buy an external hard disc and regularly back-up all your important data to it. If your hard disc fails you will lose all data, photos etc that you do not have in a second place.

You should also create yourself a set of restore discs (CDs, DVDs or a hard drive); if your hard drive does fail you can use these to regenerate your system on a new hard drive. That's your system, NOT your data. If you go into "Control Panel > Backup and restore" the system should lead you by the hand into creating these discs.

If you have windows 7 you can actually create a copy of your system on a second, external hard drive and restore onto that if necessary. That restores system AND programs. I know nothing about Windows 8.

[bhg481]

Should have said your disc C is quite LARGE ,,,

[Old_Geezer]

Whilst hard drive could be referred to as memory it isn't commonly done. Memory tends to mean RAM (Random Access Memory). Drive capacity is more commonly referred to as disk space to avoid confusion.