[jenny d]

Hello

Sorry if i am using the wrong terminology. but i shall try and describe my issue as best as i can!

My computers hard drive is, i believe, made up of 2 parts, a "C:" drive and a "D:" drive. the C: drive is the default drive, onto which everything up until recently has been installed. i only recently discovered that i was 'allowed' to put things in my D: drive, believing that it was reserved solely for temporary downloads or something similar! anyhow, there is now a few things on my D: drive, such as my music, and a few pictures, nothing whose location is depended upon by any other programs. My problem is that i have completely run out of space on my C: drive, whose capacity is only 27.9GB, compared to the D: drives practically empty 121GB.

What can i do to redress the balance?

• Can i relocate everything onto the D: drive, without all of the programs loosing their source address information (or whatever its called!), and therefore not working?
• Can i 'redistribute' the capacity of each section of the hard disk, reallocating a part or all of the memory of my D: drive over to the C: drive? Would this potentially cause problems with corrupt files?
• Is there something else i can do to sort out this issue?

Thank you!

jenny d

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Hello, jenny d, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

I'm SongCloud and I'll be helping you out today.

I see this a lot on some of the mainstream computers out there today like HP, Acer, and Sony machines. Because most people are used to the other partition on their drive to be reserved as a unaccessable recovery partition, no one bothers to check it out and see if it can be used. I will bet that this is what happened here as well.

Luckily, there are some things that you can do.

1) You can move your "data" to the other partition, which is what it sounds like you are doing. By this I man anything that is just files and folders, but not an actual part of a program.

2) You can uninstall some of the programs for which you have the original install disks and re-install them selecting the "D:" drive as the location this time. The reason that you cannot just move the programs is because most programs have registry entries and other "pointers" that point to where the program is on the disk. If you move the folder containing the program, it will break these links.

3) **More Advanced** You can get some Drive Partitioning software, like BootIt NG or Partition Magic, that allow you to resize the partitions and resize the partition for drive D: down and increase the size of the partition for C:. This is not without its risks and should only be done once you have a FULL BACKUP of ALL important data on both drives! I cannot stress this point enough as there is the very real chance that something will go wrong and both partitions may become inaccessible. Just thought I'd let you know the risks ahead of time. With that said, I should also mention that I did that very thing with my own machine and it turned out fine.

Let me know if you have any questions or need more help.

[SongCloud]

Hello, jenny d, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

I'm SongCloud and I'll be helping you out today.

I see this a lot on some of the mainstream computers out there today like HP, Acer, and Sony machines. Because most people are used to the other partition on their drive to be reserved as a unaccessable recovery partition, no one bothers to check it out and see if it can be used. I will bet that this is what happened here as well.

Luckily, there are some things that you can do.

1) You can move your "data" to the other partition, which is what it sounds like you are doing. By this I man anything that is just files and folders, but not an actual part of a program.

2) You can uninstall some of the programs for which you have the original install disks and re-install them selecting the "D:" drive as the location this time. The reason that you cannot just move the programs is because most programs have registry entries and other "pointers" that point to where the program is on the disk. If you move the folder containing the program, it will break these links.

3) **More Advanced** You can get some Drive Partitioning software, like BootIt NG or Partition Magic, that allow you to resize the partitions and resize the partition for drive D: down and increase the size of the partition for C:. This is not without its risks and should only be done once you have a FULL BACKUP of ALL important data on both drives! I cannot stress this point enough as there is the very real chance that something will go wrong and both partitions may become inaccessible. Just thought I'd let you know the risks ahead of time. With that said, I should also mention that I did that very thing with my own machine and it turned out fine.

Let me know if you have any questions or need more help.

[edge2022]

That was an excellent post SongCloud.

What we need to know first, is if C: and D: are 2 partitions on the same physical device, or if they are 2 separate physical devices.
If you only have 1 hard drive, and there are 2 partitions, then SongCloud's advice works very well. Btw, I prefer the 3rd choice. There is very little risk when done properly and backups are made. It also puts the 2 partitions together, and you can then work with 1 partition as a whole.

Tell me the make and model of your computer. Also give ma an Everest Report. Click on "Everest Instructions" in my sig, and follow the steps.

[jenny d]

Thank you for all of your help so far, it is sounding promising for being able to solve my problem! I myself do not know whether it is a partition or 2 separate hard disk drives, so thank you for telling me how to find out!

My computer is a Sony VAIO desktop, and the model is PCV-W2/G.

Everest Report

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name YOUR-T4DLHT1AGE (Jennifer)
User Name Jennifer

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 2800 MHz (21 x 133)
Motherboard Name Unknown
Motherboard Chipset SiS 651
System Memory 480 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Medallion (02/25/04)

Display:
Video Adapter SiS 650_651_740 (32 MB)
3D Accelerator SiS 315 Integrated
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

Storage:
IDE Controller SiS PCI IDE Controller
Disk Drive Memory Stick Slot
Disk Drive ST3160021A (160 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive SONY DVD RW DW-U55A
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 28615 MB (506 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 124009 MB (95158 MB free)
Total Size 149.0 GB (93.4 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard HID Keyboard Device
Keyboard HID Keyboard Device
Keyboard PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant mouse

Network:
Network Adapter Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC (192.168.1.65)
Modem Agere Systems AC'97 Modem

Peripherals:
Printer \\office\HP Deskjet F300 series
Printer Adobe PDF
Printer Auto HP Deskjet F300 series
Printer HP Deskjet 3740 Series
Printer Microsoft Office Document Image Writer
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB2 Controller SiS 7002 USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Device CanoScan LiDE 20/N670U/N676U #5
USB Device Generic USB Hub
USB Device Generic USB Hub
USB Device Hauppauge Nova-USB2-T DVB-T Adapter
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Printing Support

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 2% on drive C:.


--------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83627EHF (ISA 290h)

Temperatures:
Motherboard 46 °C (115 °F)
CPU 46 °C (115 °F)
Aux 41 °C (106 °F)
Seagate ST3160021A 39 °C (102 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 1638 RPM
Chassis 1520 RPM
Power Supply 1607 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.51 V
Aux 3.10 V
+3.3 V 3.30 V
+5 V 5.03 V
-12 V -14.91 V
-5 V -7.71 V
Debug Info F 67 6F 69
Debug Info T 46 46 41
Debug Info V A7 C2 CE BB FF 00 00 (01)

Thank you!

jenny d

[edge2022]

You have one hard disk, and 2 partitions on it. Now you tell me, out of the 3 choices SongCloud has given you, what you are going to do.

Choices 1 and 2 aren't difficult to do by yourself, but choice 3 would require some preparation. I prefer choice 3 since it combines the partitions and then you can work with a good amount of space on one partition.

[jenny d]

As I only have one hard disk, the most sensible choice seems to me to be choice 3, as you have suggested! I also agree that it will require a little more work, such as backing up all of my data, and also choosing Drive Partitioning software - do you have a particular recommendation concerning which one to use, or do they all pretty much do the same thing?

Please could you also tell me:

• How to back up my data, and what I need to back up?
• How much of the space from the D drive should I transfer to the C drive?
• Is there any particular benefit to having two, or could I just make them both into one big drive?

Thank you very much!

jenny d

[edge2022]

How to back up my data, and what I need to back up?

First move all the things from your D:\ drive to your C:\ drive. Make sure your D: drive is empty before we begin. Also make sure you have an external drive (about 30GB or higher) so that we can put the backups on it.

EDIT: Also tell me if you have a Windows CD. If you don't then, borrow one from a friend. This CD has to be a retail CD.

Edited by edge2022, 02 May 2009 - 04:15 PM.

[jenny d]

I haven't been able to get hold of a Windows CD - is doing this really going to wipe out windows to require reinstallation? If so I'm not sure that this is the best solution! I can get hold of an external hard drive, but like i said, no windows cd - what should i do?

thanks

jenny d

[edge2022]

There is always another way. Except this way is less user friendly, but there are some good tutorials.
The Windows CD is not for reinstallation by the way. It is to create a PE boot disc which has a hard drive recovery utility, in case.

Go here: http://clonezilla.or...ad/sourceforge/
Download the stable build. Then burn the .iso file to a disc using BurnCDCC. Download that from here: http://www.terabyteu...ee-software.htm

Once you have created a CD, then let's get started. First, boot into Windows, and copy all the files you want to backup onto the external drive. This will be our Files Backup #1.

Now we will create an hd backup. First things first; make sure that nothing is on the D: drive, and that everything you need is copied to the external drive. We now will defrag the C: drive.
Go here: http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag
Download and install Ausolgics Disk Defrag. Then run the utility on both your C: and D: drives.