Laptop with C & D Drive - moving things from one to the other?

[oxcat1]

My laptop has been complaining for ages about low disc space, so I went out and bought an external hard drive, assuming it was all my photos etc clogging it up - I'd been meaning to buy one anyway.

Now I've transferred them all, the problem still continues, and it turns out that it is the C drive that is pretty much full - 85mb free of 32.5GB, whereas the D is now empty - 25.8GB free of 32.2GB.

I've been using D for data storage, so presumably C is full of programs. Is there any way of moving them without having to delete and reinstall? If I click on the 'C drive' icon nothing in particular stands out as being unnecessary etc so I don't really understand how I've filled it up.

Go gently with me please!

Presuming that this is Windows (given the mention of a C & D drive) then one quick thing to try is to make sure that you've emptied the recycle bin. You can delete stuff from your drives but you won't genuinely get the space back until you empty the bin.

If you've made sure that what's left on C is now just programs rather than data (documents, music, photos etc.) then unless you're very sure what you're doing the best way to move stuff is to uninstall and reinstall.

Windows Apps can be quite funny about where files are and they tend to spray their settings all over your system. To make sure that everything is right the uninstall and reinstall should cover you.

However some better written programs will just work if you move then. If you're feeling a bit more confident you can just try moving a program, trying it and if it doesn't work then moving it back. However you've got to be careful with what you're doing and you might "mess" some programs up.

Hmmm. Thanks for that. Not really feeling at all confident about it - particularly given I'm having one of 'those' days. Might try with something unimportant and see.

Thanks again.

Something which might not be obvious is that when you drag folders from one drive to another, the default action is to COPY not MOVE things.

You may have only copied your photos, music, etc, to the other drive without changing what was left.

If you 'drag and drop' on the same drive, however, Windows will MOVE not COPY.

85 MB seems amazingly small amount of free space... What version of windows are you using (only so we don't suggest something which has been renamed in Windows 7, for example).

Have you right-clicked the recycle bin and chosen "empty recycle bin" just to make sure there's nothing in there ?

You might do a Help search for 'disk cleanup' and follow instructions.

Once you've tried those, and gone back to see how much space is on C and D, let us know.

Sometimes temporary files (either for windows updates or because of browsing) get left on the C drive.

A lot of temporary files might be hidden away in the section under "My Documents" (in a hidden folder that's called Application Data or similar).

Some data can be moved (eg e-mail, if you are using MS Outlook Express) by choosing to change the mail storage folder (within Outlook Express). I don't know that many other applications which offer similar options, but for web browsing, for example, it would be possible (with Firefox, for one) to install it on drive D: and then browser temporary files would also go on D not C.

If you find (after using disk cleanup) that there's hardly any change, it would be worth checking each folder to see where the space is being used. When you have Windows Explorer open, if you have a list of folders in the left side of the window and files in the right side, then you can right-click on folders and choose "properties" at the bottom of the menu.

For a folder, the software will check how many files are held, and how much space is used. It will also check every sub-folder, so it might take a few seconds, and you'll see the numbers of files and total disk space increase in bursts.

There are probably 1 to 2 dozen folders in the C:\ folder, and it will be boring to check each one, but it would at least identify where the space is being used.

Usually, the Windows folder is in the top 5, along with Program Files. Anyway, let's cover those checks later.

32.5GB is a tiny partition for Windows, I wouldn't bother trying to find a few wasted MB you need to shrink your D: partition (ideally get rid of it) and expand C: to fill the gap.

Given the size of the disk I guess you are on Windows XP? You are going to have a problem installing any software to deal with this problem (because you have so little space). To be honest I would not be happy giving anyone instructions on how to do this remotely, the chance of wiping your data by doing the wrong thing is just too great. A PC shop should be able to do it for you for a small charge. Mind you for not much more they could fit a new 250GB hard disk and transfer everything over solving the problem once and for all.

Right - I've done all of that and the numbers are now:

C: 99.9MB free (32.5GB)
D: 26.2GB free (32.2GB)

So not really a huge amount of change!

Yes, I'm using XP.

When I look at the list of files on the C drive, the first folder is Windows, at 18.4GB. Following that I have:

• Users: 11.5GB
• Program Files: 2.44GB
• PerfLogs: 0.0GB
• MyWorks: 0.0GB
• DRV: 128MB
• Acer: 209MB

And that's it. Does that sound about right?!

Thanks for all your help

That Users folder is unusually big.

First of all run the Disk Cleanup tool that WedDude mentions. You can find instructions for it here:
support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

Then have a look in there and work out what's taking up the room. It "should" be data like music, photos or documents that can probably be moved to the D: drive. However you may not be able to just move it, so find out what it is and then ask back here. For example iTunes can have it's storage moved to another drive but there is a special way of doing it.

Thanks.

The disc clean-up didn't help a huge amount as I've already tried that several times. It might be that there are programs that I could remove, but I've removed all teh ones I recognise and I'm a bit scared about deleting those that I don't!

In the Users folder, the largest folder is indeed 'Music' at 8.6GB, and this is all iTunes.

Please can you tell me how to move this?!

Thank again. I'm so slow... [hangs head in slothlike shame....]

by the way, it turn's out that I'm using vista, not XP. Sorry.

aaagggghhh!

Detailed instructions for moving the iTunes music libary are here:
support.apple.com/kb/ht1364

I would suggest that you don't do step 12, empty the recycle bin, until you have loaded up and tested that iTunes is still working.

So you should get a lot of space back on the c: drive, and Windows likes have space free so from now on whenever you get the choice install and save stuff to the d: drive.

Oh and I'd also be tempted to work out what else is taking up the space in that Users folder. With that extra free space you'll be gaining it's not such a big deal but I'd be curious as to what's in there.

Sounds a bit strange to me... on this laptop I've just checked and found the top 10 folders are:

8,388 MB Internet
6,208 MB Music
5,125 MB Windows
5,043 MB Program Files
4,482 MB NetApps
4,318 MB system volume info
3,265 MB Documents and Settings
2,329 MB netdocs
2,045 MB WinApps
1,231 MB RECYCLER

Now, I happen to store some applications in NetApps or WinApps rather than Program Files, and the Internet/ netdocs/ Music folders are just data { downloads + websites } but you can see quite a difference, with Windows being a fraction of the size of yours.

I assume a large chunk of what you have in your Windows folder will be updates (I don't allow automatic updates on any of my PCs), so the big question is what's in your "Users" folder...

My guess is that unless you have applications which refer to the Users folder (or items in sub-folders) then that could probably be the thing to move, before exploring what's taking the space in the Windows folder.

Ah - I was typing and checking between 1800 and just now, so see you've identified music as a good chunk of the usage in Users

I would not have known how to recommend moving music for iTunes as I don't use iTunes (but have about 100 GB of music spread over different PCs, downloaded over past 7 years... about time I copied the lot to one drive and made a backup!)

It is apparently going to take 16 minutes to copy the iTunes from C to D and then I'll know if I've got somewhere.

Thank you in advance - the anticipation is killing me!

Nooooooo, you'll be forever juggling free space between partitions.

With Vista you have the right software installed for free, so move everything off D: onto the external drive until you are sure D: is empty. Good idea to move the iTunes library onto the external drive too if anywhere, otherwise leave it as it is.

Start -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools - Create and format hard disk partitions.

This should bring up a window Disk Management which takes a while to load.

When it comes up you should see some things you recognise and some you don't. If you feel confident, select D: and delete it - simple as that! Then right click on C: and choose 'Extend volume'. It should come up with defaults that make it as large as possible so click OK, sit back and wait.

Do not delete C: (obviously) or any other partitions or drives. Note that after you reboot, the USB drive (if it is attached) will probably come up as D: - don't let this freak you out.

Good luck, all this is at your own risk but it is the best permanent solution!

Well, you've certainly gone for a drastic alternative, MrA, considering we've no idea what's currently on D...

I'd have thought that once music was moved (after all, D had 25 GB free) then C should be fine for Windows. Question is 'why so much stuff' in the Windows folder (I don't have Vista, so don't know if 18 GB would be too common!)

Rather than transfer music off D onto an external drive, I'd suggest OP uses the external drive to keep a backup copy of what's on D (so she has two copies of her iTunes library, and can turn off and store the external drive apart from times when she wants to make a backup of drive D).

I'd never suggest someone tinker with partition changes unless they had everything (OS, applications and data) backed up on something like a tape streamer to be able to completely recreate the partitions as they were before making a change. It's easy to test and redo things if you are planning to install, say, linux, and it won't matter how you change the partitions, or whether it doesn't work for a day or two, but I'd only ever do it on a spare PC rather than a main machine!

18.4GB for /Windows is about right for Vista - on the machine I am on at the moment it is 15GB and it was only rebuilt 2 weeks ago - so 32GB in total is always going to be a squeeze.