Super Green Newbie Dba - Tran Log Problem... Help, Please?

Well, I can't backup up my tran log - too big. I knew enough to know you have to back it up, didn't know enough to know that tran log backup is not included in "Full backup". Contractor installation set Growth to "un-restricted". Me, too swamped to delve deeply in time to learn this is a recipe for disaster, and then it was too late - System down because tran log filled up the disk...

(Ironically, this happened the morning of the first day of some training they sent me to - Microsoft's Programming a Microsoft SQL 2000 Database...)

So, some details... The drives on the system :
___ c: size 12G, free 7G
___ d: size 44.9G, free 10M
___ e: size 44.9G, free 13G

Tran log info :
___ filename .... d:Microsoft SQL ServerMSSQLdatahorizon_Log.LDF
___ name ........ horizon_Log
___ size ........ 5606392
___ maxsize ..... -1
___ growth ...... 10
___ status ...... 1081410

___ filename ...E:Horizon_Log2Horizon_Log2_Temp
___ name ........ horizon_1_Log
___ size ........ 167168
___ maxsize ..... 640000
___ growth ...... 640
___ status ...... 32834

(there are 2 because the other totally green newbie dba added 1 the day the system went down...)


I *thought* the addition of the 2nd tran log file meant the 1st file was no longer part of the picture, and that my available free disk space was sufficient to backup the 2nd tran log file.

Clearly I'm missing something - when I try to back up, I get this in SQL server error log :
___ Operating system error 112(There is not enough space on the disk.)


:confused:___ Does that mean it's trying to backup both the 1st & the 2nd tran logs?
:confused:___ Or is it only backing up the 2nd log, but trying to use D: (with only 10M)?
:confused:___ Or, is it using C: or E:, but tran log backups need some multiple of the size of the actual log, and there's not enough space even though there are multiple G?


I've been reading & googling. So far tried to truncate both files.
( dbcc shrinkfile('horizon_1_log',truncateonly) )
No luck, got these :
___ Cannot shrink log file 2 (horizon_Log) because all logical log files are in use.
___ Cannot shrink log file 3 (horizon_1_Log) because all logical log files are in use.

:confused:
:confused:___ How do I get them to be not "in use"?
:confused:___ Must the system be down for that? (certainly seems to...)


Also, checked out the EMPTYFILE option. Books Online says :
"Migrates all data from the specified file to other files in the same filegroup"

:confused: ___ Migrates to which "other files", exactly?
:confused: ___ Is this the right way to go?
:confused: ___ If so, how would I proceed after achieving a successul EMPTYFILE operation?


Also...
:confused: ___ In the database's Properties dialog, Transaction Log tab, there's a Delete button. Could that button be used to get me out of this difficulty?


Last, but not least... If I'm going about this altogether wrongly, can I get a pointer or two?

TIA for any and all feedback...