"Cannot initialize–scratch disks full"

MM
Posted By
Margaret MacDonald
Aug 18, 2003
Views
622
Replies
10
Status
Closed
Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret

(To mail me, please change .not.invalid to .net, first.
Apologies for the inconvenience.)

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E
edjh
Aug 18, 2003
Margaret MacDonald wrote:
Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret

What is your Scratch space? 98 MB is not a whole lot. For a big file it’s not enough.


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MM
Margaret MacDonald
Aug 18, 2003
edjh wrote:

Margaret MacDonald wrote:
Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret

What is your Scratch space? 98 MB is not a whole lot. For a big file it’s not enough.

Sorry for not being more clear. It’s not a matter of not having enough space to save some large file — I can’t get the app to come up at all.

The disc with only 98MB is c:, the boot disc, but I have 68GB free on my working disc (i:).

Margaret

(To mail me, please change .not.invalid to .net, first.
Apologies for the inconvenience.)
S
Stuart
Aug 18, 2003
You really need more space free on the c: drive just for windows to run properly. Try to clear as much space as possible, start by deleting all your temporary files. How big is the hard drive anyway?

Stuart

Margaret MacDonald wrote:

edjh wrote:

Margaret MacDonald wrote:

Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret
What is your Scratch space? 98 MB is not a whole lot. For a big file it’s not enough.

Sorry for not being more clear. It’s not a matter of not having enough space to save some large file — I can’t get the app to come up at all.

The disc with only 98MB is c:, the boot disc, but I have 68GB free on my working disc (i:).

Margaret
MM
Margaret MacDonald
Aug 18, 2003
It’s a 6GB partition on an 18GB drive. I keep the rollout file on a different physical drive, and the only things I’ve intentionally installed on that boot part were W2K and the SysCommander boot manager. I’ve also deleted everything I can delete, and moved everything I can move — I freed up over 50MB and that still didn’t help…it gave me enough room to re-install, but re-installing didn’t make the problem go away.

I seem to almost remember that there’s some trick to fixing this problem with pshop…I think it happened to me once before, but I can’t recall the details (I can’t even be sure I’m recalling the right problem). If nobody can come up with an Aha! solution, then I’m sure I’ll have to spend a day or two stripping down the drive, repartitioning, and reinstalling every wretched piece of software I own. Why companies INSIST on consuming space on the boot drive even when their software is being installed elsewhere is an annoying mystery.

Margaret

Stuart wrote:

You really need more space free on the c: drive just for windows to run properly. Try to clear as much space as possible, start by deleting all your temporary files. How big is the hard drive anyway?

Stuart

Margaret MacDonald wrote:

edjh wrote:

Margaret MacDonald wrote:

Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret
What is your Scratch space? 98 MB is not a whole lot. For a big file it’s not enough.

Sorry for not being more clear. It’s not a matter of not having enough space to save some large file — I can’t get the app to come up at all.

The disc with only 98MB is c:, the boot disc, but I have 68GB free on my working disc (i:).

Margaret


(To mail me, please change .not.invalid to .net, first.
Apologies for the inconvenience.)
P
Pedro
Aug 18, 2003
Is there a way to discover where the scratch files

Isn’t -it in :

Documents and Settings\%user%\……\App…\Adobe\…\Workspaces

like in Winxp I’m running ?
S
Stuart
Aug 18, 2003
Search for prefs you will find a file called something like ‘Photoshop version 7 prefs.psp’ or similar and then delete it and try to start Photoshop again.

Stuart

Pedro wrote:

Is there a way to discover where the scratch files

Isn’t -it in :

Documents and Settings\%user%\……\App…\Adobe\…\Workspaces
like in Winxp I’m running ?

H
Hecate
Aug 19, 2003
On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 12:41:35 GMT, Margaret MacDonald
wrote:

Is there a way to discover where the scratch files are placed without running P’shop (since that’s the problem)? V7 doesn’t seem to be using an ini file, and when I peeked the files in the ‘settings’ location pointed at by the registry, I couldn’t find any obvious reference to scratch discs.

Margaret
Others have told you where. But, you are running on too small a scratch disk space. And as for the where, a good idea is to create a folder on your scratch disk and direct Photoshop to use that folder in preferences) as your scratch disk. Then, you can always check that the folder is empty. And, if you have a regular problem, can set up a script to clear the scratch folder every time you shut down your computer (or if you’re like me and never do, then a shortcut to the script on the desk top and do it manually).



Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)
IF
Ian Firth
Aug 19, 2003
Decrease the file cache for Internet Explorer, it’s probably set to 2GB or so.


Regards,
Ian Firth
A
AFM
Aug 19, 2003
98Mb of space on the boot drive isnt nearly enuf for windows to run – The Windows swap file can change dynamically depending on what the system is doing… If this drive is fragmented as well – this will compund the problem – I would say you should have 0.5Gby – 500 Mby free on the boot drive for 128-256k installed RAM
JC
Jerry Cargile
Aug 19, 2003
Margaret,

Photoshop creates a file called "temp", so look on each of our drives that you suspect you listed as the drive for the scratch disk (might be best to check all of your drives for a "temp"). If you see a "temp" file, right click it and check the Properties to see if has any size, if it does, delete the file and Photoshop will create it again after it is started.

Jerry


Margaret MacDonald wrote:

Is there a way to discover where the scratch files are placed without running P’shop (since that’s the problem)? V7 doesn’t seem to be using an ini file, and when I peeked the files in the ‘settings’ location pointed at by the registry, I couldn’t find any obvious reference to scratch discs.

Margaret

Robert Feinman wrote:

If photoshop crashes or your machine does the scratch files are left behind rather than being deleted as when the program is exited normally. Look in your photoshop preferences to see where the scratch files are placed and then with photoshop not running go to that folder and delete any you find by hand. You’ll need to do this again if photoshop ever exits abnormally in the future.

Margaret MacDonald wrote:

Every now and then, for some reason I’ve not been able to track down, Photoshop loses its mind. The symptoms vary in severity from simply losing history and settings, to the current nonsense where I can’t get it to start up because it claims the scratch disks are full. Since the disc with the smallest amount of space free has 98MB, this doesn’t seem a credible complaint.

I’ve tried re-installing, but to no avail. I’m currently using v7 under W2K.

Any suggestions *much* appreciated!

Margaret

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