P: Photoshop won't open because scratch disks are full

[samarthsrivastav]

I am running Photoshop CC on my MacBook Air with macOS Sierra. Every time I attempt to open Photoshop through any means, the following message appears: "Could not initialize Photoshop because the scratch disks are full", and Photoshop does not open. I tried clearing space from my Mac in general including several GB worth of apps and removing several cache files, but nothing seems to work. I also tried holding down the command and option keys to reveal the Scratch Disk Preferences, and it lets me select the Startup and MacIntosh HD. Again, nothing worked. Anyone know how to fix this message, and/or clear scratch disk space?

{Moderator note: Edited the thread title}

[JimDirt]

I just tried what you said , and i chose the other drive that it works on ,(i went from C drive to E drive for "First" Startup) , and it gave the exact same error  , but yet if i were to boot to that drive Photoshop works perfect

Any other ideas ??

EDIT EDIT:

OK , i had to restart my PC to finish some Windows updates  , and after restarting , i tried to set the Scratch Disk location  , and it seemed to work this time , i reset it to E Drive , instead of C , and Photoshop opened up without the error and is usable now   , the main issue i have with this is that this is a "work around" not really a "fix" for the error/issue

How about a Update/Patch for those of us with PS7 (or those of us that can't afford to "upgrade" to a newer version of Photoshop) m, that would allow PS7 to recognize a larger drive (say up to 4tb for example) , so we can use it without this frustration , Photoshop should have been remedied of this "known" issue , long ago

But thanks to your help i am now able to use it again  , but i would hope for a real fix to be applied as this is a known and frustrating issue

Thanks ...Jim

I am not posting this as the "solution" since its more of a workaround than a solution/fix  , but thank you for at least getting it working again for me till Adobe applies a actual "update/fix" for the issue ....

[Jeff Arola]

Adobe did issue a "fix" in photoshop cs, the version after photoshop 7.

So any version of photoshop cs and newer doesn't have a problem with large hard drives and unfortunately adobe will never offer a patch or update for ps 7.

Maybe you can rethink having a bigger hard drive and use a smaller say 256 gb ssd for your boot drive and install all your

programs on that and then have another one or two 1 TB drives for storage of pictures, documents videos and other stuff.

[JimDirt]

As mentioned , the main reason i went to the larger drive instead of having multiple smaller drives was for the "convenience" of having ALL my programs and files on 1 drive (that and i was over 3/4 full on the 1tb drive , so i needed more space) ( i made a duplicate/mirror of my old drive , but had to reinstall some games and programs to make them work correctly PS7 was one of them , then when trying it , i got the error which made no sense , since it worked on the old drive)

Like i also mentioned , some of us can no longer afford a "newer" version , so we have to keep what we have , the very reason i drive a 1990 Toyota truck , because i can't afford to pay (even on payments) for a newer one , as much as i would like to be driving a newer model truck , or have the latest versions of programs i use  , its simply not a realistic ability in my current/long term financial state  , and companies need to recognize this , that not everyone "can" upgrade , weather they want to or not

But again , thank you for the help !!

[gener7]

If you have not already, there is a minor update to 7.

Adobe - Photoshop : For Windows : Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1 update

[JimDirt]

I just tried the Update , and it says it can't find Photoshop 7.0  , its pointing to the correct location , but i think that now that the shortcut points to the other drive it won't find it  , does this mean i have to update the one that is on my other hard drive ??/

[gener7]

If you can update, do so. But if it's not working, then something I can't see is going wrong, so best to leaves things as they are.

Gene

[Jeff Arola]

That error that the ps 7 7.0.1 update can't find ps 7 usually means your serial number has been blacklisted., but you can try the other suggestions as explained below.

Photoshop 7.0.1 updater cannot find Photoshop file

[JimDirt]

Well this is just getting more and more frustrating ...., and i don't want to have to un-install/reinstall again  , it seems like this is all i do since switching to Windows 10  , it seems to have issues with everything i install  , even my games are a pain to get to work/install , and some of them are some of the latest games on the market

Again , thanks for the help  , i guess since Adobe has no plans to update PS7 so it easier for those that still use it  , and at least for now i can actually use it again ... i think i am done trying things  , i have spent the majority of the day on this  , its almost not worth the effort when a "fix" can't be obtained anyway , and the "workaround" made it function again ... so i am calling it quits on this one .... Again , Thanks for the help ...

[Test Screen Name]

There will never be updates to Photoshop 7 or the six versions that follow (up to CS6). You are fortunate it still runs in the latest Windows, Mac users lost the use of it years ago. People with new monitors and cameras often also need to upgrade.

System changes are are a major cause of paid upgrades. It isn't just for new features. Running old apps is fine, I do plenty of it, but it needs major caution in other upgrades. You can't just keep mixing old and new without breaking some eggs. Or something like that. Switching to Windows 10 may have been a very expensive free upgrade.

[whenevertobe]

Thanks Jim, you've expressed alot of my frustration in these few short paragraphs. Subtle use of quotations around "upgrade", that was a good one.

The only thing that worked for me was to create a separate partition on the harddrive and now photoshop runs.

I was having this problem somewhat before I bought a new harddrive:  I was trying to save work on an external harddrive and photoshop was giving me an error that the drive was full, which is ridiculous because it was a 2T. Now I bought a new harddrive, and they forced me to buy windows 10, which came with all the frustrations you wrote above and then some, and then photoshop wouldn't load at all, because this drive was also 2T.

It's good to see others are bothered by what the masses just accept. I guess misery loves company.

[René Svendsen]

Hi

In Win10:

Go to Discmanager and create a virtual Hard drive on your 2 TB C: disc, I created one with 1 GB space, got the name E:

Start Photoshop with CTRL ALT

Change scratch disk to E:

Best regards René

Worked here.

[Red Cullen]

I bought PhotoShop 7 many years ago and I have used it without any problems

on a series of PC/Windows systems, including Windows 10 - but now it will not

run on my new PC, that has a 2 TB SSD internal and 2 TB SDD external drives =

I get the same message as many users: NO SCRATCH FILE SPACE..

I couldn't patition my internal drive, but I managed to partition my external

drive into E: 0.5 TB and F: 1.5 TB - I un-installed PhotoShop 7 from my internsl

C: drive, and re-instslled it on my external F: 0.5 TB drive. But I still get the

same ERROR message, even after trying Cntl-Alt to direct it to use E:, and

Cntl-Alt-Shift to delete the PREPERENCE file. 

Bottom Line: Installing on a smaller (almost empty) partition DOES NOT

SOLVE MY PROBLEM - anybody have any other ideas???

PLEASE respond to my e.mail: RedCullen1@comcast.net

[whenevertobe]

Thanks, worked for me.

[Jeff Arola]

To make your choice of Scratch disk stick you might need to run photoshop 7 as an Administrator and then set the

Scratch Disk choice.

Right click on the ps 7 shortcut and click Run as Administrator or right click, select More and the click Run as Administrator.

[Garry157F]

I just found an interesting "work around" for the Scratch Disk Full error in Photoshop 7 on Win 10, after trying every known fix, of which nothing worked: switch to Image Ready and save your file, then switch back to Photoshop if needed. No Scratch Disk Full error appears in Image Ready!

[Kprice]

I have the most current version of Photoshop CC (updated today, 5/10/2017).  I want to use a 32gb thumb drive as an additional scratch disk for photoshop.  I have the thumb drive installed and I can read/write to the drive manually but when I go to the Scratch Disks option in PS it's not seeing that drive.  The drive was originally formatted as Fat32.  I've tried reformatting as exFat and NTFS, closing and reopening PS after each reformat, but it's still not seeing that drive.  I currently have a portable hard drive hung off another port and it sees that one fine (this is a backup drive so I don't want to use that as a scratch disk).  Why won't it see my thumb drive? 

I'm on a Windows 7 laptop.

[Benjamin Root]

IIRC, thumb drives cannot be used as scratch disk space. Personally, I'd not ever want to use one for scratch, even if I could. An internal 128 GB SSD would be a much better choice, and would only cost about $80. A USB 3.0 SSD would work, too, but would cost more

[Trevor.Dennis]

None of my external drives are showing as available as Scratch space (14 drives in total, but only 7 available).

This Lynda dot Com chapter discusses USB3 external drives, but I can't find other information about nhow to mount then so they show up in Preferences.

Taking advantage of scratch disks

The bottom line here is that a pen drive is a terrible idea when it comes to Photoshop scratch space.  I have a few drives that are 'reasonably' fast, but they don't come close to a USB3 external or pocket drive.  So a Pen drive would dramatically slow things down even if you could get it to work.

[lesliewand]

i don't think ANY programs allow external drives to be used as 'scratch' disks. and as has been noted previously, it wouldn't be a good idea anyway.

[Kprice]

Thanks.  I did find something about this elsewhere eventually but you've confirmed that.  I have a Samsung portable hard drive that Windows sees as a permanent storage type.  PS sees that no problem but didn't really want to have to constantly hang that off my laptop.  Not sure how I'd add another internal drive to my laptop or if it's even possible so it looks like I'll be using the portable HD for now.

[Benjamin Root]

Ah, a laptop. Which laptop do you have? Some laptops do have an extra bay for a second hard drive. If not that, you could get a new SSD (say 1 TB?) and use that as your new C drive. Then set aside a new 100-200gb partition for scratch disk. The partition isn't entirely necessary with the fast SSDs these days.. However, a separate partition would both prevent you from filling the system's drive past what you'd want for scratch, and prevent large scratch files from taking up system space.

[Kprice]

Thanks for all the info.  I'm using a Del Inspiron 15.  It's actually a work laptop that's several years old.  I've been casually looking at getting a new personal laptop (mine died a little over a year ago) and will have to keep all that in mind while looking.

[Benjamin Root]

Okay. Yes, the 15 only has a place for one drive. Some of the 17's have room for two. So you'd need to use on disk for boot and scratch

[hay34475]

After remote session with Adobe - I am now able to select my drive - Run as administrator and drives will show up.  Open creative cloud and "Run as administrator" first and then photoshop as administrator.  (right click on icons on desktop to see the "run as administrator" menu choice).

[davidpaints]

Thanks for sharing! This "Run as Administrator" fix helped my Adobe apps to recognize the "missing" secondary hard drive I wanted to use as "scratch" too. It still won't read my thumb drive though as others have mentioned earlier.

For those of you who might want to "Permanently run a program as an administrator", this support article should help:
Run an Adobe program as administrator | Windows 7, Vista