Disk Space warning help

This is a general outline of what to do when you start to get warnings about available hard drive space on your DAW. I'm providing this as there have been some questions about how to defrag your hard drive, what to do when you get available space warnings, and how to address these problems. Several assumptions have to be made though. You have to have optimized your PC for operation as a DAW. You have the appropriate amount of memory and hardware that at least meets the minimum requirements of the DAW package.

Here are some things you can do to take care of the issue.

1. Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
2. Select the logical drive on which you store your music projects
3. Select Ok
At this point the machine will start doing an analysis of what you have in files and will prompt you to select the types of files to delete. Be sure to select all the temp files, the Internet Explorer files, log files, installation files that aren’t needed anymore, Error dump files, error reports and internet history files. Don’t check anything that you aren’t sure about. Just note those down and run the clean up without selecting anything you aren’t sure about or have a questions about. You can send us a short list later on and we’ll help you in figuring out what you don’t need. Click ok when you have made the selections. On average I clean out 20 GB of crud from my hard drive monthly (this is a personal observation in my own computing environment doesn't reflect what may be normal for you).

What windows doesn’t show when it calculates available space for a drive is all the crud that occupies space and does nothing after the process of loading the OS and other utilities that run in the background that create log files and temp files as part of their loading process. These files in turn will give you available space warnings when it seems like you should have available space, when in reality these files are there. Manulaly remove any files you feel are irrelevant in your "My Documents" folder as these are not taken into account by Windows as junk files. Essentially get rid of those notes to Johnny's teacher about Johnny being sick and the like. We both know Johnny wasn't sick he was holding the thermometer up to a light bulb and pretending to be sick. In any case get rid of the clutter. Just be careful of what you delete if you think you might need it in the near future.

Next. Back up all of your valuable data and programs to either removable media, optical media or another hard drive. Some manufacturers provide a back up feature or software package as part of the delivered machine some others don’t. Windows Vista shipped with a back up utility in the premium and ultimate editions. I can't remember what I was using on my XP machine but I know I had to go out and buy it. Check and see in either case. After backing up your machine you will want to run the Windows defragmentation program. However let me explain why you want to back up your core programs, sound files and documents. Windows Defrag has been known to corrupt or destroy on files occasion as it moves things around. This is a rare occurrence but if you don’t plan for the worst you will become a victim of it. Murphy will see to it at some point down the road that you loose something critical. Maybe not this occasion but another and you will bemoan the fact that you didn't take the time to back everything up.

Run the Defrag utility.
1. If you haven’t already, disable your screen saver. You do not want this to turn on during the defrag process as most screen savers use a lot of processing power otherwise needed during the defrag process bringing defrag to a grinding hault. You can turn off the Screen saver by going in to the Control Panel, selecting your screen saver and setting it to never. Also disable the sleep mode on the machine as you don’t want it going and turning the machine off during the defrag process. This could be disastrous, just go ask my kids how many times I had them reload their own computers because they turned it off in the middle of doing some type of critical operation.
2. Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
3. Select the appropriate drive and click Ok

Once you have the disk defragmented you should see an improvement in performance and the available disk space errors should go away or at least be minimized. The other thing to do would be of course to save your projects to another disk and moving any finished projects to either hard disk drive archival or optical media archival.

This would be done by taking your projects opening them up and then saving the as Cakewalk Bundle Files (CWB). Transferring these CWB files over to your new drive location. You may want to verify file integrity by opening a bundle after you have moved it. If it populates all the wave files correctly then your transfer was successful. After you have moved and confirmed all your files are moved or copied you can go through and delete any remaining project and audio files in you root directory where you have the files previously saved.

This should free up enough space to make the Computer operate as a DAW without running into resource issues. This is assuming of course that the PC has already been optimized and tuned up for usage as a DAW. Just as a precaution you may want to, in about a weeks time after the initial tune up, run the clean up and defrag process again.

The best alternative all the way around is to have three hard drives, One for the Windows Operating system and software tools, utilities and programs, another for loop sources and other audio files and yet another for all you audio projects.

Edited for spelling and grammatical errors.

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

dirve, what to do when you get available space warnings, and how to address these problemsSeveral assumptions have to be made though. You have to have optimized your PC for operations as a DAW. You have the appropriate amount of memory and hardware that at least meats the minimum requirements of the DAW package.

I don't know if you should put meat in your pc..

Great stuff Doc, as usual - and great idea Jessie.

If I could suggest one extra thing to ask Cakewalk for, I'd see if they could make the thread editable just by one of us, and not have the 'Reply' option built into it - in other words, it would be essentially locked to everyone else. As these posts increase, the person who can edit the post can add the links.

Guys, I had an idea a while back [which I ran by Bob and Doc] that might help as a make-do until Cakewalk let us have this purpose built thread.

Bearing in mind we already have an editable sticky for Dean Roddey's tutorial - I could ask Dean if he'd be cool with us using it a similar way.

As anyone can still add posts to that sticky, we could add these 'sticky' topics to it and leave a link to anyone interested as part of a reply.

This is how it would work!

If you want me to go ahead and ask Dean, let me know here, or even better, if you get any luck from the Caklewalk guys - stop me in my tracks.

Cheers

Steve

ORIGINAL: zeypxun

Honestly I think stickies are great, but I think mostly its people like us who see them while noobs never even look around before posting it seems. Plus if someone doesn't know how to handle a disk space problem then I'm pretty sure they should not be using any cakewalk product!! Yes I know a troll supposedly uses it but hopefully we can stop it there! I don't know why you guys worry so much about it. I think we need to worry about a more serious problem. The Space Disc warning! It flies around and giving people a partial lobotomy which causes mild to severe ****ation and will make you think you are really doing things (like recording music) which you are not, but it does enable you to keep typing about it like you really are doing it. Furthermore it creates complex delusions where the subject will think he/she is a professional musician who is in high demand and they will think they know how programs are written and the differences between software and hardware. Yet they only really know how to eat potato chips and wipe the grease onto their shirt.
The evidence that someone is a potential subject is vast and varies between individual subjects, but the most common are:
1- They always post nonsense.
2- They always post the same thing over and over again until most people will think they only learned how to speak 5 - 8 complete sentences.
3- Their online persona appears to be that of a 13 year old boy.

Anyways hopefully this helps too! I gotta go to the store now so my typing time has been cut short!!!!

Clever - very neat Z!

This would have been slightly more accurate though:

The Space Disc warning! It flies around and giving people a partial lobotomy which causes mild to severe ****ation and will make you think you are really doing things (like recording music) which you are not, but it does enable you to keep typing about it like you really are doing it. Furthermore it creates complex delusions where the subject will think he/she is a professional musician who is in high demand and they will think they know how programs are written and the differences between software and hardware. Yet they only really know how to eat potato chips and wipe the grease onto their shirt.



Please proof read your stuff before dashing to the store!

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

Z,

I have to disagree with you. GTP3 is entry level. I would agree with you if someone were to buy Sonar 7 and not know how to deal with a disk space issue. But this is something I have seen more than once in this forum in the last year. And some noobs are better than others at looking around first before posting.

Point taken here Doc.

But 'entry level' can mean different things to different people - a single prop engined aeroplane will definitetly be considered entry-level to a Stealth Bomber pilot but not to a landlubber like me that gets dizzy stood on the third rung of a ladder.

For my 2cents Bob, this forum should be exactly what you [and me] want it to be.

If someone here can't figure out how to get GT or some associated software or hardware to do what it's supposed to, or they want to improve some part of their recording technique, they ask a question here.

If someone knows the answer to said question, they reply, or try to help in some other way.

A bit of a laugh and a joke along the way makes it all a bit more fun but basically, those two tenets should hold true.

Nobody can ask a dumb question has long been the way it is round here, and long may it continue.

Anyone who judges someone else on their ability to use this software is sadly lacking in the social graces - we all had to start somewhere.

The answer to a question is either easy or difficult - depending on whether you know it or not!

As far as I'm concerned Bob - any question you ask is valid and I will always attempt to help you, or anyone else for that matter - as such, you are as welcome here as anyone, and I hope you continue to use this forum in your quest for knowledge.

Remember, the guys that write the software don't always get it right so what chance the rest of us!!









Spelling

No problem mate - without guys like Robert, Randy, JamzOr and Doc investing so much time in me way back, I'd still understand very little about all this.

It's nice to 'thank' them by way of helping others out myself when I can Bob - a lot of my advice is secondhand in a way, but hopefully attuned to a specific problem.

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

Z,

I have to disagree with you. GTP3 is entry level. I would agree with you if someone were to buy Sonar 7 and not know how to deal with a disk space issue. But this is something I have seen more than once in this forum in the last year. And some noobs are better than others at looking around first before posting.

I am going to still disagree with you! I don't think GTP3 is entry level at all, I think something like Audacity or N-track is entry level. But I do see your very valid point, and i do agree that some noobs are better than others.

But again, I was really just trying to set up for my joke that would have been funny had i had the chance to finish it!!!! Now I wish i could type real fast.

I got the joke Z - you just missed out one italicised letter - that's all!!

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

This room by far is more welcoming than the Sonar room where people have a tendency to have their head where the sun don't shine.

Or Worcester, as we know it.

Bob, It's the human condition.

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

ORIGINAL: zeypxun

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

Z,

I have to disagree with you. GTP3 is entry level. I would agree with you if someone were to buy Sonar 7 and not know how to deal with a disk space issue. But this is something I have seen more than once in this forum in the last year. And some noobs are better than others at looking around first before posting.

I am going to still disagree with you! I don't think GTP3 is entry level at all, I think something like Audacity or N-track is entry level. But I do see your very valid point, and i do agree that some noobs are better than others.

But again, I was really just trying to set up for my joke that would have been funny had i had the chance to finish it!!!! Now I wish i could type real fast.

Z,

That's the thing about this room I think is good is that we can discuss and agree to disagree. This room by far is more welcoming than the Sonar room where people have a tendency to have their head where the sun don't shine. It's important to have a place to start where one can feel accepted and not degredated for their lack of preparation or knowledge. Or for that mater difference of opinion.

For a low cost product it is a place for the more serious musician to start and learn the basics of digital recording. But the thing about knowing your way around the inside of a PC (or Mac) is not for everyone. Some are challenged by the technology itself and the seeming lack of logic that Microsoft has put into the operating system (comparatively speaking and compared to UNIX or Linux). There are so many ins and outs of a PC that for a lot of individuals it's hard to get around or know what to do to rescue or fix a problem.

I would agree with you to a point. but not everyone knows or gets their way around a PC. Heck there are few people who can get into the guts of their cell phone and fix a Java problem. We are a society of technology users, and only a fraction of us are technology fixers.

In any case I think I agree with Steve, we could see where the Joke was coming from.... and going now that you mention it.

Yeah i haven't learned too much from the Sonar forumssssssssssssssssssssssss, except how many things people use and what I should be using.

I still stand by my opinion about knowing your pc, just like if you want to learn to drive, you need to learn how to put gas in your car! Among many other things. Before you run out! That's just the way I feel. Of course you can still drive without knowing how to do it. I mean you don't need to learn how to compile your own drivers and such, just basic things like simple hard drive maintenance. But then again, I am one of those guys who learned how to reprogram their cell phone to do things from having my own custom banner to unlocking it for other carriers, and that was eight years ago. I learned how to get files from my cell phone before I ever even saw any forums online that had anything to do with cell phones.

My joke was one of those things where all these ideas popped into my head just from the phrase "Space Disk" and I think it would have been funnier if I had finished it then, but if I do it now it probablt wouldn't turn out as good! Kind of like when I'm writing songs!

Anyways I like this forum better than the Sonar ones by a long shot.

Z,

I take it you are either not married or haven't been married. Having a wife sure puts a different view on things like car maintenance and PC maintenance, or even yard work for that matter (my little German girl is somewhat old world about the guys and gals thing). It puts a whole new spin on driving a car, filling it up and the maintenance thing (oil, tires, transmission fluid and the like).

So I can appreciate how some people can turn on a computer (filling it with gas) and use the GUI (driving even in PC terms), yet not know how change the oil, check the brakes.etc. (disk maintenance, etc.). I think you are like quite a few of us out here that by either virtue of our own curiosity or by our profession have come to know technology inside out.

Fog thanks for the info. Also for some, take a look at your internet security suite. I use TrendMicro Internet Security Pro Suite and it comes with a registry cleaner as well, And it works quite well. The down side to some registry cleaners is they end up cleaning things out that you need. For the more advanced user I would suggest perusing the registry yourself and cleaning out residual junk. I have to emphasize advance user here. The wrong thing deleted and you'll be reloading your system.

Again Fog,

Thanks for the tip. It'll give some of the noobs to computing something easy to use.