How do I free up space on my recovery drive?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #49, I look at a problem with a recovery partition. Either leave
it alone or backup it up and delete it.

Full recovery drive

In general, my recommendation is to almost always leave the recovery drive
alone completely.

Or back it up and then remove the partition from your machine.

It’s for recovery only

Now, I don’t know that I would assume that the “90% full indication” means
that you’ve been copying things there.

• Realize that the recovery drive was never intended for things to be written
  to it.

• The recovery drive exists only as a place from which recovery
  software would recover a clean version of the operating system and all of the
  utilities that were installed on the machine when you got it.

Typically, it comes 90% full. So I wouldn’t assume that it’s full because of
anything that you did.

Check the drive

The best way to view what’s in it?

Well, gosh, if you can see that it’s 90% full, then clearly it’s visible on
your machine. Fire up Windows Explorer and go poke around in it; have a look in
it.

I’m assuming; I’m guessing; in fact, I’m pretty certain that you will find
that there is nothing on that drive that you did. Like I said, Windows
Explorer should be able to just navigate into it.

• Double-click on the D drive if that’s what the letter assigned to it is.

• If it’s not visible, then I’d have to know where you’re getting this warning
  from.

A hidden partition

Many times the recovery drive is, in fact, a hidden partition on your
system. But in that case, then it would be hidden.

In other words:

• Not only would you not see that it’s 90% full;

• But you also wouldn’t have had the opportunity to transfer things into it in
  the first place.

So I’m a little confused by some of the missing details in the question
here. But by and large, there’s nothing you need to do to your recovery drive.
You don’t need to make more room in it.

Backup and delete

In fact, the thing I almost always do when I set up a new machine that comes
with a recovery drive pre-installed is:

• I will actually take a system image of the entire machine: the base drive
  and the recovery drive;

• And then I’ll get rid of the recovery partition.

It’s just taking up space, which most of the time, if you’ve got a good
backup, you’re never really going to need it.