I asked this once before and all cleared up with a ram "defrag. Now it is happening again and same procecure will not help. I have both CS2 and CS on the pc. CS2 shows the error when trying to crop an image. CS does not hesitate to do the task. I have a gig of ram wiht about 712 or so free most of the time and plenty of defragged hard drive. So what to do to get the CS2 to see the disc are not full? Has the software lost its way? Any help appreciated. The clipboard is purged as is the "bridge" cache. Thanks, TomDart.

The area on your drive reserved as virtual memory (scratch disk) becomes off limits by the Defrag by the systems instruction set because that the area of the disk is full. It is "Off Limits" because it cannot move the data to another area to Defrag it and it cannot Defrag it in the "Scratch Disk" area because it is full, and there is no room to move trhe data around.

So, you need to resize your virtual memory to the smallest your system will allow, or click the radio spot that says "No Scratch Disk or Virtual Memory." Make sure you do not let windows auto configure the size, you will defeat the purpose.

Restart your machine.

Once Windows is ready to run again, Defrag the hard drive. You may have to do this several times. Each time you have finished defraging, restart your computer.

Now, when you are satisfied that its as good as it can get, or I am insane, which ever comes first, then resize your virtual memory to the max, and make sure you do not allow Windows to auto configure anything.

If it's still giving you troubles, then remove all your data from the HDD and prepare to do a low level format by going into DOS and type in the command FDisk C: . If it takes it that far, you'll remove all the partitions on your hard drive including your Primary DOS partition, which erases your FAT (File Allocation Table).

Now when you reinstall Windows, it will be fresh and new, ready to reconfigure and install all the software.

Works for me every time, twice a year.

Thanks...I will go see what might happen but short of reinstalling Windows if I can help going that far. Tom.

Tom, if you do have to reinstall, do yourself a huge favor and F-Disk. Years ago, when HDD looked like cakes you put in a top loading dish washer, we used to call the procedure "Initializing the Disk." It only takes fifteen minutes more, but it completely erases everything. Only a degaussing (strong magnetic field)will do any better.

You'll be amazed at the difference and swear you'll never simply format a drive again.

Because you don't have DOS on the drive anymore, they usually include a diagnostics disk with some instruction sets for the old DOS 6.XX...

One of the greatest bonus's is that it's like installing a new drive, theres no previously installed information on it. So, those good old programs that had limited trial periods will work on your drive once again. Once the original FAT is gone, so too are all those hidden settings.

Good luck pal, hope to see you again before Christmas.

Joe

Several things... first, your scratch files only exist as reserved space when Photoshop is actually running.. when not, the space becomes available to the sys. Second, Very true, windows is quite capable of taking over your entire hard drive if left to itself... you SHOULD take over management, and define a specific size, both min and max. use "C" drive for that. in preferences, in Photoshop, make SURE that NONE of your scratch disks are on "C" drive. then specify a partition/drive that you can afford to not use much. One thing people seem to be leery of is "purge"... true, if you "Purge all" you lose your history states and undo's up to that point, but photoshop stores EVERYTHING you do, and it's effect on your image... you can imagine the amount of space THAT takes. One thing I have done, and I'd recommend it to anyone without an enormous amount of HDD space, is to get Partition Magic. It is a great deal of help in managing your partitions, and drive space. If you feel that you HAVE to sterilise your HDD, then I'd recommend that you find out who manufactured your drives, and visit their website. Western Digital, and Seagate both have downloadable software for installing and managing your drives. Good luck with it all. Lou.

Sorry, One last thing, I noticed that you purge the clipboard.... is that the only one you purge? try, Edit>Purge>All just before you do a crop... just be sure you're willing to lost the safety net of being able to undo anything before that point. Lou.

I have tree scratch disks, one on each physical (verses logical) drive. Windows only allows me to have 4096MB. Thats all windows will allow. On C drive is the regular one which I use for my CAD. On the other there are two each is the same size 4096MB. One is for Photoshop the other for after effects. If there is another way to get more using Partition Magic, which I do have, I've not seen it.

The system will not move the data from the scratch disk during Defrag. One disk is 40GB the other is 180. Face it, Windows sucks!I only wish I had enough money to afford a Linux Guru...

Yeah... Personally, I'd like to see the whole MS organisation try to swim to Japan..... From Chile. Yes, Windows only allows 4096 in any one partition... more MS idiocy...'s an old time numbers problem they've neglected.... Must be a feature, then... the scratch disk that defrag won't touch... is that one of the ones that has the win scratch on it?... defrag WILL NOT touch the Windows ones, as long as they're defined as for win cache files, but the photoshop cache is a complete variable, and when you close it, it becomes available. at least, it should... photoshop even tells you that. windows, itself, shouldn't need more than one cache... you might try just leaving the one on c drive... that immovable block MAY be files that windows installed. if you're running XP, then indexing may be turned on. if that's the case, you'll see "System volume files" on EVERY partition you have. defrag will not touch that. one of the limits that defrag has, is that it requires a certain amount of free space on the drive it's working on..... I think it's about 30%. In re-reading your last, I think, (Maybe), I see a misunderstanding. Defrag does not move ANY data out of the partition it's working on... think of it as "shuffling it around" sort-of like being in a locked room, with boxes that need to be moved.... too many boxes, and you can't do it. maybe this might help. Lou.

Your conversation has been very interesting..now a question: My system supports "Raid" function. I don't have the drive installed or set up to use raid. Would you recommend this be done? I really don't know much about it but friends who know more than I do and the one who built this pc rave over raid.

Raid may be nice, but if your HDD doesn't support it, then it'll just come back with a message that there isn't anything there for it to use. a word of caution, though... there are SOME Applications that have problems with it, and even a few that just plain won't run at all if it's on the sys. The advantage is faster acces to your HDD. Hope this helps, lou.

lou, it does help. I need the added drive to use the raid utility. I run a gigabyet dual bios motherboard with Athlon 64 chip. The system does just fine and is fast enough for me. Raid utility is one I have considered but won't know if I "need it" unless I try it! I don't like the idea of having to plow through apps which might not work smoothly. This is for the future..perhaps or perhaps not. Thanks again. BYW, I got the scratch disc thing worked out without needing extreme measures. Your sum advice here did help. Tom.

Thanks Tom, I'm happy to have helped... on RAID, though, the only apps that I've ever heard of that have problems with it are a few of the ones that use your HDD a lot, or try to establish a sort-of encapsulated directory of it's own. Mostly it's ones that try to manage your drive separately. If you are runnung XP, then, if you have indexing service turned on, RAID won't speed you up much. Lou.

Attached Link: http://www.soft32.com/download_151.html

I have Partition Magic. It's a cool app! It really rocks!

I've used it quite successfully in the past. However, at this time, I haven't reinstalled it after my last f-disk back in July.

With two physical drives, and giving up on re-learning Unix/Linux, I can't see the need in it.

God I so want my Windows Apps to run on Linux without spending days to learn how to install an emulator that will work with each different application. To my knowledge, Rhino and Adobe products have no emulator that will work/

My reason for wanting to get away from Windows is that Linux is a much more efficient operating system, and they have desktop platforms available that work as well as XP. It's faster because it's not a freight train on a sociopathic power trip. It does all the check-disk/check-sum stuff on its way up, so it's slow to start instead of being slow to perform.

Whats more, when it comes to security, there are so many different ways to set up the platforms, things you can leave out entirely, that it makes it more difficult for a leprechaun to make a virus to attack your system. For instance.

Back in '03, the day after the US invaded Iraq, I used my newsgroup auto-plucker which runs on Windows in order to get "Official Pictures" of the aircraft and military ground forces at work. I picked up the same virus on that newsgroup that every branch of the US Government got did, including the FBI, CIA, and all branches of the Armed Forces did. There was only one branch that did not get the virus: the newly created Department Homeland Security. Why didn't they get it? Because they were using Linux. The Unix code created for NSA so many decades ago.

Just thought I'd add that. Sorry for hogging the thread Tom.