(Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

    [Vista Ultimate 64-bit O/S]

    I have 3 partitions

    C-My boot drive 48GB-almost full
    D-Has data but plenty of room left 185GB
    E-Empty but formatted 105GB

    I cannot make my boot drive bigger in the current drive configuration.

    If I reformat the D and E drives and turn them into unallocated space can the C drive be extented then?

    All I want to do use the space available on my large hard drive without the hassle of reinstalling etc.

    Thanks in advance.

    Other Q-Vista vs Windows 7
    Is Windows 7 somehow better than Vista?

  • #2
    Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

    Michael,

    I'd be surprised if you could expand C by formatting D and E... at least I've never been able to do it on any version of Windows up to and including XP. From what I've experienced, once the partitions are set, you can't reconfigure them in any way without reformatting the drive(s). Based in how large your hard drive is, I'd say that will take a good couple of hours of work to accomplish.

    As for Windows Vista vs. 7, I'm still getting used to 7, and I've never owned a Vista machine. I've used Vista in a few places, and my mother has one, so I have some experience. 7 is definitely better in terms of services and options offered, and transparency.

    Good luck! Jordan
    No matter how big and bad you are, when a two-year-old hands you a toy phone, you answer it.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

      It can be done... but you need to buy a special software package to do it.

      It's called Partition Magic.

      However, I wouldn't bother with that. Two things come to mind - 48GB is way too much stuff on the boot drive, perhaps you could relocate some of it - a free option!

      Secondly... for the same $70 that Partition Magic costs, you can easily afford (after-tax!) a 60 GB OCZ Vertex3 SSD. Install windows on that and make it your boot drive, system speed will dramatically increase, and it'll free up what is currently your C partition to use for other tasks.

      I highly recommend Option #2 if you want to spend any money...
      Christopher Mallon
      FIDE Arbiter

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

        Originally posted by Michael Yip View Post
        [Vista Ultimate 64-bit O/S]
        All I want to do use the space available on my large hard drive without the hassle of reinstalling etc.
        You can do it easily without interacting directly with BIOS
        http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

        Originally posted by Michael Yip View Post
        [Vista Ultimate 64-bit O/S]
        Is Windows 7 somehow better than Vista?
        If you compare various performance-related metrics, Windows 7 beats Vista hands down. There are a lot of other things that 7 does better, one of the important ones being the way it handles multithreaded applications and uses multiple cores.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

          Originally posted by Michael Yip View Post
          [Vista Ultimate 64-bit O/S]

          I have 3 partitions

          C-My boot drive 48GB-almost full
          D-Has data but plenty of room left 185GB
          E-Empty but formatted 105GB

          I cannot make my boot drive bigger in the current drive configuration.

          If I reformat the D and E drives and turn them into unallocated space can the C drive be extented then?

          All I want to do use the space available on my large hard drive without the hassle of reinstalling etc.

          Thanks in advance.

          Other Q-Vista vs Windows 7
          Is Windows 7 somehow better than Vista?
          http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

          A free tool to extend the partition.

          I have used the utilities on a Universal Boot Disk to do the same thing in the past. There is really no need to pay for such utilities anymore. The free stuff works quite well. The tricky part is finding it. The universal boot disk was a linux boot disk and used an earlier version of the QTParted software that can be found at the following link:

          http://en.kioskea.net/faq/1391-free-...artition-magic

          Windows 7 can be more stable than Vista but I haven't had problems with either. I am typing this on a Vista laptop... where I replaced the HD with a 128 GByte SSD. I move my data files onto an external usb HD on a regular basis.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

            It can be done for free with partedmagic http://partedmagic.com/ .

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

              [QUOTE=Christopher Mallon;57258]...Two things come to mind - 48GB is way too much stuff on the boot drive, perhaps you could relocate some of it - a free option!
              QUOTE]

              I've moved all the data/programs I can, deleted non-useful files and am now down to uninstalling useful programs which is why I'm feeling desperate. I bought the computer + Vista in China and have noticed that the fonts folder is jammed full of very large chinese language fonts. But when I go to fonts via Control Panel I cannot delete them. I'm out of ideas for what to delete/move.

              Anyway thanks for the tips Chris and everyone who had suggestions.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: (Non-Chess) Drive cleaning

                [QUOTE=Christopher Mallon;57258]...48GB is way too much stuff on the boot driveQUOTE]

                Hi Chris

                Would you have any ideas for free software that can clean off crap files that are sitting on a hard drive. I have managed to make my C drive much bigger by comining the C and D drives into one but my initial problem remains.

                I have deleted unnecessary files already, used file compression, unindexed; used the included 'disk cleanup' option and done what I think are all reasonable options. However, I think there are still tons of unwanted temp files (and other unwanted files) hiding somewhere...

                Advice appreciated.

                Thanks in advance.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: (Non-Chess) Drive cleaning

                  There's a free program called WinDirStat that gives you a nice visual representation of your drive space.

                  You can navigate into subdirectories and see visually which files are taking up the most room, and kill any that you don't need.
                  Christopher Mallon
                  FIDE Arbiter

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: (Non-Chess) Hard Drive Management

                    Thanks!

                    I tried CCleaner this morning. It zapped off 8GB so I'm making progress.

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X