Photoshop cannot initialize because the primary disk is full. Primary scratch disk is full in Photoshop what to do

From time to time I come across new problems both in using a CMS and in using various types of programs. In general, I have been working on websites, including their design, for many years, but quite recently the following message was new to me:

which appeared when calling one of the program tools. In fact, it doesn't matter what action you are performing in the program at this moment, but if you get a warning that ends with "The primary scratch disk is full.", know that the cause of these errors is simply running out of disk space on that disk. on which the computer operating system is installed.

There is a solution to these problems, and not just one. And therefore a little more about each.

So let's start with first option solving the problem.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop.

2. In the top menu, go to the " Editing», « Settings", paragraph " Working disks».

3. In the settings window that opens, either switch the checkbox to the “D” drive, or check the boxes on both drives.

When finished, click OK. This is where the first solution to the problem ends.

The second option The solution to the problem is based on simply cleaning your main drive. By main I also mean the disk where the operating system was installed. Most often this is the “C” drive.

Here you simply see if you have any unnecessary files and delete them, empty the recycle bin, move large files (movies, music, etc.) to another drive and then delete them from the source drive.

After the drive on your computer stops glowing red:

you can make full use of the Adobe Photoshop program.

If you are the owner of the program Adobe Photoshop CS4,CS5 or CS6, and encountered an error when loading the project "The request cannot be completed; the primary scratch disk is full", - don’t be alarmed. All this is easy to fix.

First, check free place on working disk- on where it is installed system(but not the one on which the program itself was installed). By default, Photoshop unpacks the project to drive C:. For example, if the project size more than 1 GB, then in “unpacked” mode it will take about 7 GB free space. So, the first task is to clean up the system disk. Go to Computer and right-click on the desired local drive. Calling properties. Next point "Disk Cleanup". Sometimes you may be surprised how much space this utility can free up:

As you can see, I have freed up 13.9 GB. This is because applications contain a lot of temporary files. For example, you opened WinRar archive, launched the contents from there and immediately closed the archive - the unpacked files will be located on drive C: until the end of time.

After this, I advise you to restart your computer. Next we move on to at a construction site the program itself Adobe Photoshop. Launch the photo editor and go to the menu: Editing -> Settings -> General.

In the window that opens, on the left we find the line "Performance". Let's move on to this point. In field "Working disks" check the boxes next to additional local disks on which you would like to store Photoshop temporary files. Also in the field above with the slider we can set the amount of used random access memory. But I advise you not to touch this parameter.

All is ready. Restarting the program Adobe Photoshop and from now on we can calmly open any project.

When working in the Photoshop graphic editor, the user may suddenly encounter the message “The primary scratch disk is full.” This usually means that there is practically no free space left on the system drive C (to which the Photoshop program is usually unpacked during installation), and therefore the editor issues the specified notification. Let us consider in detail the causes of dysfunction and ways to solve it.

Photoshop uses the PC hard drive as a temporary workspace (swap) in a situation where the computer does not have enough memory (RAM) to perform work operations. Typically, drive C is used as a working hard drive, on which Windows OS is installed, as well as Photoshop itself.

According to the system requirements of the program, free disk space for comfortable operation of the editor must be at least 10 gigabytes. If the amount of free space is less, and the user is working with voluminous images with many layers, the program becomes insufficient free disk space, and the user receives the message “The primary working disk is full.”

This message may also appear in a Crop situation where the user has selected the wrong calculation units. For example, having defined the image size as 1200 by 1600, the user specified centimeters (or inches) instead of pixels, as a result of which the program created a huge file, which caused the disk full message to appear in Photoshop.

How to fix no disk memory

The solution to the “Primary Disk Full” problem in Photoshop is to implement the steps we will cover below.

Connect other drives in Photoshop settings

The first method is to connect other working drives in the Photoshop editor settings.

1. Launch the editor, select “Editing” – “Preferences” (Settings) – “Performance”.
2. And find the “Working disks” option there.
3. Place a check mark next to the drives that have the largest capacity (for example, D).
4. Then click on “Ok” and completely reboot the system.

Increase free space on drive C

Another solution to the problem is to delete unnecessary files from drive C to increase the amount of free space.

1. To do this, you can use the standard system utility to clean up the disk (move the cursor to drive C.
2. Right-click and select Properties.
3. Then go to the “General” tab and select “Disk Cleanup” there, as well as external utilities such as “CCleaner”.

Delete Temporary Photoshop Files

In some cases, the cause of the "Primary Scratch Disk Full" error is extremely bloated temporary Photoshop files on your hard drive. On Windows OS, temporary Photoshop files usually have the name ~PST####.tmp. You will need to find them and delete them, which will allow you to solve the “Primary scratch disk is full” error in Photoshop.

Defragment your scratch disk

There are situations when Photoshop displays a message about the lack of free space in a situation where there is quite enough space. This occurs because Photoshop requires coherent, unfragmented free space on its scratch disk.

Therefore, if there is enough free space on the disk, then you will need to defragment it. On Windows 10, this is done by launching Explorer, hovering over the scratch disk, right-clicking, and selecting the “Properties” option. Go to the “Service” tab, where we click on “Optimize”. In the optimization window that opens, click on the “Optimize” button again.

Click on "Optimize"

Check the size of the file you created

Make sure that when working with Photoshop and file sizes, you specify the correct units of measurement, and do not select the same centimeters instead of pixels. To solve the problem, just click on “Clear” after selecting the Crop Tool.

Conclusion

The appearance of the message “Primary scratch disk is full” in Photoshop usually indicates that there is not enough free space on scratch drive C. It is recommended to connect other scratch drives in the program settings, as well as free up workspace on the specified hard drive yourself, after which the problem in question is usually solved.

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