[guitwiz]

I had to do fresh install of windows xp.
Now my c:drive is down to 169M after having to download service pack 2 etc.
I don't see that much memory being used on the c drive when i go to remove programs, I don't see enough to equal the amount of used memory. Is there junk leftover from previous installs of windows? Doing a clean up is only freeing couple hundred meg. c drive is 13 gig! Do i need to clean up windows, or- what else can i do besides cleaning temp files, internet cache and programs?
program files is 3.5 gig
windows is 3.5 gig
documents and settings is 679M
all other folders are small.
So 3.5+3.5+2 for everything else is 9 gig. Where's the other 4 gig?

Edited by guitwiz, 05 September 2007 - 12:25 PM.

[Advertisements]

Just because the folder properties only give you 9Gb, that's not all of the overheads that are needed on NTFS drives. The smaller the drive the less effective these overheads become. As a rule they're optimised more for bigger drives, but then it won't concern you as much.

The easiest solution is buy a bigger hard drive. Then space will be the last of your concerns. 160Gb, 200Gb, even 320Gb. Buy the biggest one you can afford.

[Neil Jones]

Just because the folder properties only give you 9Gb, that's not all of the overheads that are needed on NTFS drives. The smaller the drive the less effective these overheads become. As a rule they're optimised more for bigger drives, but then it won't concern you as much.

The easiest solution is buy a bigger hard drive. Then space will be the last of your concerns. 160Gb, 200Gb, even 320Gb. Buy the biggest one you can afford.

[guitwiz]

my c drive is internal, do i have to replace it with an internal drive?
I already have 2 big mem external drives- Do i move windows from my internal c drive to one of those drives and make it the boot drive or something like that?

[ultimateslacker2]

I get what your saying by internal. External is most likely USB which is what you plug right in. You gotta physically open the computer case and locate the drive and take it out or just buy another one and place that sucker right in. There should be enough cables for the drive. If not just simply take that one out and put the new one in. I would recommend Seagate or Maxtor. Western Digital tend to get noisy over time and die. Happend to all mine and I bought a Seagate and am quite happy with it. Newegg has lots of bargains so check them out I got my 120gb for 55 dollars. Worth all of it

Hope that helps if not post your concerns

-slacker

[Neil Jones]

Yep, an internal hard drive.
13Gb drives these days are very slow and as XP gets bigger and bigger with the raft of patches that come out every other week, they eventually fill up.
The ideal minimum drive size these days is, at the very least, 80Gb. 40Gbs tend to fill up too quickly. The bigger the better.

[guitwiz]

ok, so I will pull the old c drive out and install the new one. Then when i turn the computer on the bios will look to the new drive as if it was the old drive so I don't have to change the bios or anything like that. If that's the case, the only question I have is what is the easiest way to get windows and programs etc. from the old drive to the new drive?

[Neil Jones]

Just reinstall it as you did before.
Or you can use a utility such as Norton Ghost to clone it all over.

[guitwiz]

Norton products scare me, but I read about acronis- which is cheaper too. I think I like that way better since it will move my programs over and I won't have to deal with that part of the recovery. Thanks for your help!

[guitwiz]

ok, acronis isn't working. Can I just drag all the folders on the c drive except windows to one of my external drives, then after installing the new internal drive, drag them all back after installing windows xp again? Would that work?

[Neil Jones]

Just reinstall Windows on the new drive and then copy your stuff back from the old one would be the easiest way to do it.

[guitwiz]

I am replying so that other Sony Vaio owners can see this and understand a solution to this problem.

When trying to install the new drive, I see there is only ONE drive in the computer. So, C: and D: are partitions on the same drive. The WAY TO INCREASE THE VOLUME ON C: IS:
Use the Vaio Recovery Wizard and that gets your computer back to where it was when you bought it. Choose to do a full restore and it will GIVE YOU THE OPTION TO CHANGE THE MEMORY CAPACITY ON THE C: PARTITION! So you can change it from 13GB all the way up to 100GB. I set mine to 60GB and that makes the D: drive 60GB as well. So, if Windows XP reinstalls are using up most of that 13GB on C:, this is what you do! You can go to sony.com/pcsupport and do a live chat for free and they will walk you through it.