# Hard Drive Help



## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

right the 710's lappy is starting to tell me the hard drive is nearly full. Suprising as there isn't that much crap on it but it is only a 40GB drive

Anyway clicking on the props of the C drive I see it's set as 16.4 GB and nearly full but there is a D drive that is 17.4 GB and virtually empty?

So it seems the drive has been split into 2? I'm not a techie and it must have been like it when we got it. Now I'm gonna get the 710 to delete all the stuff she doesn't need but can anyone tell me if it's possible to get rid of D or at least move some of it's capacity to C?

It's an ACER travelmate btw.


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## strange_too (Feb 19, 2007)

The drive is partitioned, you need some like partition magic to adjust the partitions.

I'll see if I've got a copy here you can play with.


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## thunderbolt (May 19, 2007)

A mate of mine who looks after my 'puters, used a piece of software called Partition Magic to put some partitions in one of my hard drives, so I'm sure that it could be used to remove the partition, alternatively you could uninstall some of the software and reinstall it on the D drive. He told me that it's best to have a partition so if the OS becomes corrupted you won't lose everything.

Great minds think alike Howard. :lol:


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## strange_too (Feb 19, 2007)

Yeah often the way 

BTW what OS is she running?


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## Robert (Jul 26, 2006)

I've often wondered about this - my PC has one physical drive but C, D and E.

Can't you just store stuff on the partition with space available?

Never understood the need for partitions but willing to be educated


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## thunderbolt (May 19, 2007)

Robert said:


> I've often wondered about this - my PC has one physical drive but C, D and E.
> 
> Can't you just store stuff on the partition with space available?
> 
> Never understood the need for partitions but willing to be educated


From what I understand, the partition(s) split your single hard drive into usualy 2 or 3 seperate drives. My mate advised me to have it done so that if your OS becomes corrupted, then that's all you lose nd not all the data that you have stored on the other partitioned drives. He split mine into 3 the C drive for the OS a D drive for software installation and an E drive for all other files and folders.


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## strange_too (Feb 19, 2007)

Rob, think of them as fix dividers in a filing cabinet. You can only get a certain amount of data in between the dividers.

With PM you can move these fixed dividers to a more usable size.

Otherwise you need to format the whole drive and reinstall the OS in one partition.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

You could buy Partition Magic, or you could just boot the PC off any one of a number of live Linux CD's and do the same job for free with the included partition editor. It's likely to be gparted (or something very similar) which can also be used as a bootable CD.


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## James (Jul 17, 2006)

Well if D is almost empty move some things. Like documents, photos all the stuff she downloads. Either cut and paste the folders or right click on the shortcut in most cases there is a move option. You may want to do that with her e-mails too as it builds up. Run windows washer from Webroots, I can PM you the registered link for the app, its safe used it for years and will clear out all the garbage that has accumulated like temp files, net files and all the other crap and I'll bet will clear over 1GB for you alone. Going forward any appz that get installed choose custom and install to D

There are many appz to resize partitions but try the other stuff first. Paragon makes some good appz for the job as well as Partition Magic which is now from Norton. Have all versions of everything just let me know 

If you search programz on the net it will take you to a few retail appz from FOSI including the Paragon Hard Disk manager 2008


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## Stanford (Feb 10, 2007)

You need to be very careful when messing about with partitions - it is very easy to screw everything up.

Also bear in mind that some suppliers partition the disk and store a system backup on one (rather than supplying software CDs or DVDs). If you delete this partition and things go wrong you may not be able to reload your OS and other software that came on your pc.


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## Chally2 (Jul 11, 2008)

rhaythorne said:


> You could buy Partition Magic, or you could just boot the PC off any one of a number of live Linux CD's and do the same job for free with the included partition editor. It's likely to be gparted (or something very similar) which can also be used as a bootable CD.


Sound advice, imo.

I use a C drive for programme installations and a D drive to store stuff. I always have, so that if I needed to re- install the OS my stored stuff would remain intact when I had to do a "destructive" re- installation as advised by the computer maker, on occasion. 

Gparted is pretty sound on Windows and Linux, it's been around for a long time and has been refined as much as any commercial product, it just doesn't look as pretty.  I don't find that a problem anymore.

If you partition a hard disk bear in mind that if it fails (mechanically or electronically) you are stuffed. That suggests some sort of backup for important files is a good idea. Either a second fixed HD, a portable HD device or optical storage.

Most PCs have a CD or DVD writer that can back up important files if we get to grips with the idea of needing to backup things that are important to us. 

Sorry if I'm talking out of turn, or off topic.  I seem to do that occasionally. h34r:


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

thanks everyone.

I think the easiest thing to do is put her on a diet :lol:

I'll move some stuff from C to D, I know if I mess around with it too much it'll never work again and she's looking for any excuse to get a new laptop!


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## strange_too (Feb 19, 2007)

Paul it's not that difficult to do. You can always change where the windows defaults "my documents" to the other partition.

Otherwise why not create a shortcut to the other partition on the desktop and just get your wife into the habit of saving bigger stuff there.


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