What is the scratch disk?

Asked By BeccaLynn 10 points N/A Posted on - 09/17/2011

I am trying to edit some photographs in Adobe Photoshop to use in a banner  and I am getting a message stating "The Scratch Disk is full". I'm not sure what a scratch disk is. I have 153 gigs of space on my hard drive so I'm not understanding why it would be telling me it's full. It's also stopped me from doing any work at all on the banner file.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Adobe Photoshop

Could not complete your request because the scratch disks are full.

OK

Thank you in advance for your time and patience

 

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• Question Category: Photos / Graphics Soft.

Best Answer by mykletm

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Answered By mykletm 0 points N/A #124540

What is the scratch disk?

Hello BeccaLynn,

Scratch Disk is the temporary storage allocation of memory located in your Hard Drive. When you are using Programs or Software like Adobe Photoshop, it uses your RAM (Random Access Memory) and when the amount of space in the RAM is all used, that's the time that it will use the Scratch Disk. Scratch Disk is located in your hard drive but it doesn't mean that the whole Hard Drive can be used as a scratch disk. It is only limited.

To give you a brief comparison. RAM is used as a virtual memory whenever a program or software is open and running, it is used by your Operating System (e.g. Windows Vista) as well. Hard disk is where you store, save or install programs or files. When the computer shuts down, the RAM/ Virtual Memory loses everything, but the stored/installed files/programs remain in the Hard drive.

So when your computer is using more programs, and your RAM is not enough to hold the memory of the running programs then it uses the scratch disk (temporary storage of memory in your hard drive). And when that space is all used then it will tell you that your "Scratch Disk is Full".

• There are some solutions on how you can avoid this error.
• Partition your Hard Drive
• Deleting Temporary Files in your Scratch Disk
• Defragment your Hard Drive

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Answered By JoaneGura 0 points N/A #124541

What is the scratch disk?

Hi,

“The Scratch Disk is full” that means you are run out of memory. Scratch Disk for Photoshop is your hard drive. Generally Photoshop uses hard drive space for its temporary virtual memory. You said that you have enough hard disk space. So this error appears because of may be you do not have enough RAM space or you have only one partition in your HDD.

In order to solve this problem you may change Scratch Disk location for your HDD partition or add multiple Scratch Disk location. You can also delete temporary files for Photoshop to free RAM memory. You can also use RAM free software for it.

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Answered By Ion Hathew 0 points N/A #196839

What is the scratch disk?

Had been provided with plenty solutions to resolve your issues regarding “scratch disks are full”. In cases that after following options that were already provided but the message seems to bother you again. You may try this suggestion. Another option that you could try in worst case scenario is to upgrade your RAM. But do this with much caution as this may result with unwanted errors in your computer.

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• Posted on - 01/08/2015
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