Photoshop CS Scratch Disks

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Posted By
B._Asper
Jun 29, 2004
Views
580
Replies
10
Status
Closed
I have never posted here before, but I was told that I might find some help…I just got the new CS, and I am stuck on opening the program…it says that my scratch discs are full….that is not the case at all, but I can’t change them even if it was…can someone tell me how I can fix this….or should I just reinstall, and if so, what should my scratch discs be assigned to ..

Thanks for any help…
b

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BobLevine
Jun 29, 2004
Before you try anything, trash your prefs. Details in the FAQs.

Bob
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B._Asper
Jun 29, 2004
The biggest problem is that I cannot get the program to open…is there a way to get to the prefs?
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BobLevine
Jun 29, 2004
The details are in the FAQs.

Bob
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Jun 29, 2004
I wonder if trashing the preferences (Ctrl+Alt+Shift while starting up PS) would work in this case?…from the sounds of things, this seems to be a new installation of PS CS, so the preferences should be their default values already.

So, as a side thought…B. Asper, if it happens that you have installed PS CS on your system "C" drive and it is running low on free space, then you may well be stuck in a bit of a bind. Why? Because even if you reset the preferences, PS CS will default to using the program drive as your default scratch disk and in turn fail to launch if there is insufficient space to accommodate the scratch disk area. I ran into a similar problem once myself when I was exploring a question where someone posed a solution of resetting the prefs. My system partition is low on space (not a big problem since temp directories and pagefile reside elsewhere) and where I previously had the PS scratch disk defined to another drive, resetting the preferences found PS trying to use the system partition and then failing to launch due to insufficient disk space.

The solution? Housecleaning…get rid of any temp files, unused programs, etc., to free up some space. If that is inadequate, consider uninstalling a large application from the system drive and reinstalling it to a different drive. Or, for a faster approach, you can do what I did and just move some large directory to a second drive. With sufficient space freed up on the system drive, PS should now be able to launch and, once open, you can change your scratch disk preferences to point to a drive with more space available. Then, make a copy of your preferences file and save it elsewhere so that you can use it to replace a corrupt preferences file should that occur some other time in the future. After you’ve got PS running, go back and return the directory you moved to it’s original location so that you don’t cause new problems.

Actually, while "housecleaning" of a drive may provide a solution, allowing a drive to run so low on free space should be avoided. While my system partition may at times get as low as having only 100MB free (4 GB partition), that’s something I shouldn’t allow to occur, and I am seeing from time to time where that can really bite me by surprise. I’ve never seen anyone quote a rule of thumb, but I’d hazard a guess as to say that it is probably wise to leave at least 300-500MB of free space on the system drive.

I don’t know that low disk space is your problem, but maybe this will help if so.

Regards,

Daryl
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LenHewitt
Jun 30, 2004

B.A,

As you have just installed the application, it will be attempting to use the C:\ drive as the scratch drive (not the drive that PSCS is installed on if other than C:\). Do you have plenty of free space on the C:\ drive?
RK
Ronald_Keller
Jun 30, 2004
Hold Ctrl+Alt while launching Photoshop. You will be presented a dialog box where you can set the scratch disk.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift > preferences
Ctrl+Shift > additional plug-ins folder
Ctrl+Alt > scratch disk

Greetings from Belgium

Ronald
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Jul 1, 2004
Great tip Ronald…thanks!
RK
Ronald_Keller
Jul 1, 2004
You’re welcome Daryl.
JJ
John_Joslin
Jul 3, 2004
Ctrl+Alt+Shift > preferences Ctrl+Shift > additional plug-ins folder Ctrl+Alt > scratch disk

I know it’s lazy of me not to check the manual, but where is that documented?
RK
Ronald_Keller
Jul 4, 2004
To be honest, I can’t remember, they exist already a long time so I’m not sure where I got them originally. They are probably mentioned somewhere in the manual, but I am like you, too lazy to look them up 🙂

Ronald

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