When I try to open file in Photoshop CS, I get "disk is full" message - not Scratch disk,

User has had Photoshop for over a year with no problem. Got hung up burning cd with illustrator file the other day, ever since, when she tries to open a file in Photoshop, she gets a message that says "can't open file, disk is full". Definitely NOT scratch disk message. User has Win XP prof OS, 512mg ram, 5 gb open on drive. Only one drive with system defined virtual memory.

5 gb open on drive

If that's all the free space you have on the only HD in the machine, then the message means "exactly what is says on the tin!"

Photoshop needs a scratch disk of at least 10GB (20GB to 40GB is better). Plus of course, there is the dynamic nature of the system's paging file and all the .tmp files which are created when applications are run.

No drive should ever be allowed to become more that 80% full. With only 5GB free how long must your regular defrag take?

You really need to add another drive - and more RAM to run Photoshop properly.

In the meantime clear as much off the drive as possible and do a search for any orphaned .TMP files which can consume an huge amount of space. Then defrag the drive.

Chris,

Photoshop needs a scratch disk of at least 10GB<<

Bit of an exageration there, old boy. It might with the files you work on, but I run with a 2gig scratch quite happilly, and NEVER hit the secondary scratch.

5gig of free space certainly wouldn't prevent Photoshop initializing.

EEF,

Have you deleted the preference file yet? (Details in the Forum FAQs). That's the first thing to do.