Partitioning hard drive?

andy2004

partitioning, resizing still takes hdd space from C, example you want to add space from the D drive to your C, you partition D to make it D and E, you now want to merge D into C, but because you havent got much space left on D the partitioning software fails saying not enough space.

OP hasnt mentioned anything really useful.

1 What operating system. Right click on My computer and select properties. Windows Key + Pause

2 In windows explorer how much space on C and how much Free

3 what is stored on D

closed

you shouldn't really need to repartition at all, just find out where the space is going using windirstat, and clean it up.

XP < 3GB
program files 1 - 5GB
My docs 0.5GB
pagefile 1.5GB
system restore < 1GB

adds up to 11GB at most.

Docs and pagefile can be moved to D if required.

If the 5GB on d is windows recovery, you'd probably want to keep that.

andy2004

XP is a probability, but then it could be ME or Vista I wouldnt expect it to be Windows 7 due to its age.
but that still doesnt explain the amount used as on Page 1,
other possible files that CLOSED didnt mention, windows updates like Service pack 3, use a temp folder but not C:\temp or C:\windows\temp.
This folder can be deleted, preferably move to as you can not uninstall the updates if you delete this folder. Why would you want to remove the updates?
Hence the reason i say deletable. but pref move,
Java folder updates. I remember my java having about 30 folders

that just leaves the other 8gb ?
If i remember correctly XP doesnt backup its reg files like Windows 98 used to so not that.
Cache files maybe, used by programs his got installed ?

closed

Op has already confirmed xp

xp with sp3 is around 3GB

temp files should be gone with the ccleaner run

GunJack

closed wrote: »

Op has already confirmed xp

xp with sp3 is around 3GB

temp files should be gone with the ccleaner run

have to disagree with this - just finished a clean install this morning, including all updates including .NET framework, and it was more like 7 GB... allowing for Office, A/V and other installed progs call it 10 GB or so. Question is where has the rest of the space gone ?? XP generally doesn't like running with less than 15% free space on the drive.

closed

Does that include the swap file, temp files, bloat?

.net framework and it's never ending series of bloated and failed patches could eat up the biggest drives, however that's not windows, and not essential.

the 15% is often quoted, usually related to defrag, must have appeared in a computer mag 20 years ago, and stuck - 15% of 6GB is very different to 15% of 1TB. if the amount of free space is always greater than zero, what does the OS care?

Just checked on a fully patched XP Sp3 machine (with .net), windows is 3.02 size/2.90 size on disk GB

GunJack

yes it includes pagefile, a/v and office but then once finished all updates a full cleanup was done, including hotfix installers and the usual temp/etc. files. Also includes .NET framework as there's more and more software out there that won't run without .NET framework, SAGE accounts and filehippo's update checker for a couple of recently-experienced examples so I'd consider it to be more and more necessary as other software uses it as part of it's core functionality. No other bloat as was installed from a MS XP disk, so no added manufacturer's bloat/trial versions/etc. And yes, 15% on small drives (20-60GB) is usually a good margin for free space. I've got one here now with a 30GB drive (so 27-ishGB) which had only 2.5GB free..got that up to 5-6GB and it's a different machine. I s'pose a lot of this is subjective, and depends what you use the machine for/what sw you run on it, but I'm thinking catch-all rather than tailored solution.

derrick

andy2004 wrote: »

partitioning, resizing still takes hdd space from C, example you want to add space from the D drive to your C, you partition D to make it D and E, you now want to merge D into C, but because you havent got much space left on D the partitioning software fails saying not enough space.

OP hasnt mentioned anything really useful.

1 What operating system. Right click on My computer and select properties. Windows Key + Pause

derrick wrote: »

OS is Windows XP Home Edition.

2 In windows explorer how much space on C and how much Free

derrick wrote: »

I have according to properties on my Local Disc C,: -
Capacity 19.5 GB
Used space 18.7GB
Free space 832MB

My D drive has: -
Total Size 57.1GB
Free Space 51.5GB


I have hardly anything on the C drive, (my computer), so I am assuming it is filling due to the OS and updates being installed automatically.

3 what is stored on D

Mainly Word docs and a couple of videos totaling 5.6GB

......................

derrick

closed wrote: »

you shouldn't really need to repartition at all, just find out where the space is going using windirstat, and clean it up.

XP < 3GB
program files 1 - 5GB
My docs 0.5GB
pagefile 1.5GB
system restore < 1GB

adds up to 11GB at most.

Docs and pagefile can be moved to D if required.

If the 5GB on d is windows recovery, you'd probably want to keep that.

Just ran WinDirStat:-

Windows: - .....................6.7GB
Programme files: - ............4.6GB
Documents and Settings: - 2.4GB
<Files>: -....................... 1.3GB
Totals: -........................15.06GB
6 others totaling 218MB

What will it do if I click "Clean up", I know the obvious, but I used CCcleaner yesterday and got back 2.61GB.

.

debitcardmayhem

derrick wrote: »

"Documents, (on the C drive?), is only 294MB, so is all the other 17GB on the C drive operating system and if so will it not require backing up? the 17Gigs will be OS, and any installed programs, if you're careful you can do without backing it up"


And what if I am not careful? How would I back up all of that? Is there a chance I could lose it all?

Which "resizer" would be the easiest? the one from Bazster in #15, or WinDirStat
.

It would appear you don't have any backups at all , you really should have back-ups before going any further.....

derrick wrote: »

Just ran WinDirStat:-

Windows: - .....................6.7GB
Programme files: - ............4.6GB
Documents and Settings: - 2.4GB
<Files>: -....................... 1.3GB
Totals: -........................15.06GB
6 others totaling 218MB

What will it do if I click "Clean up", I know the obvious, but I used CCcleaner yesterday and got back 2.61GB.

.

Not much since you have used CCleaner , you may have a few MB of downloads lurking , you really should do some backups