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General => General discussion => Topic started by: Guy on 06 November 2011, 13:50
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righty ho...
just sorting out the mrs' laptop and it seems to have a rather odd set-up applied to it...
Drive C: Vista
Used Space: 54.6GB
Free Space: 1.19GB
Capacity: 55.8GB
Drive E: Data
Used Space: 351MB (note MB!!)
Free Space: 54.1GB
Capacity: 54.5GB
Obviously everything that Natasha is storing on there is going to Drive C... all of her programs and user documents are being stored on there too... is there any way of freeing up Drive E and giving some of that space back to Drive C... without going through some kind of major kerfuffle?!
tia
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Would have though that drive E is there for storage purposes. Why don't you put all media files there and free up space from drive C?
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You can't resize the boot partition on the fly as it were, but you can use other apps or even do it from another PC if you take the hard drive out.
You got another vista/7 machine handy where you can plug this drive in? IF you have the right click computer, manage, disk management, delete what was know as E: on the laptop, right click what was her C: and choose Expand.
Otherwise you can do it with other other tools, but Vista/7 has this capability built in, just not for boot partitions because they're generally in use.
A free tool would be the Vista/7 install DVD, choose to repair computer then open a command prompt and use disk part.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
it would be something like:
diskpart
list partition
select partition 1 (1 being representative of the number that corrosponds to her C:)
extend
exit
then reboot and you should then see that what was her C: is now taking up the entire capacity of the hard drive, pop the drive back in the laptop (this method can also be done from her laptop as Windows isn't loaded, thus stopping the boot partition from being altered)
I'm sure there are tools out there, but that's what I'd do :smiley:
PS: backup before trying this with ANY tool/method.
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The partition is usually where the actual software is that the recovery discs use to access to reinstall windows etc. If you delete that, you'll have deleted your copy of windows install and other programs.
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Good point but, they're usually called "Recovery" and consume significantly more than 351Mb.
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arrrughrghrr!! my brain hurts :embarassed:
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I'm having pretty much the same issue with my sister in laws laptop, pretty much the same figures as guy! She's just had a iphone 3gs given to her by her brother but asked me to sort it, now her hard drive is full??? Is this likely to be the cause cos i'm at a loss? :cry:
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I wouldn't be suprised if there's actually a hidden partition for the "recovery" odds are the laptop manufacturer, decided to split the remaining space to give you an OS partition and a storage drive, you've got a few options, remove stuff from c either un-install or delete the crap, move data to the second "drive" (partition)
load up windows explorer, the big folders are probably going to be music, video, pictures
right click and bring up the properties, one of the tabs contains a move folder button, click this and move the folder to the second drive.
your alternative, is to change the size of the partitions / merge them into one, Win7 supports this on the fly, but not sure what the vista implementation was, there are plenty of tools out there that will allow you to change the partiton;
http://www.partition-tool.com/
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
as already said back everything up before you mess around with the partions.
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I wouldn't be suprised if there's actually a hidden partition for the "recovery" odds are the laptop manufacturer, decided to split the remaining space to give you an OS partition and a storage drive, you've got a few options, remove stuff from c either un-install or delete the crap, move data to the second "drive" (partition)
load up windows explorer, the big folders are probably going to be music, video, pictures
right click and bring up the properties, one of the tabs contains a move folder button, click this and move the folder to the second drive.
your alternative, is to change the size of the partitions / merge them into one, Win7 supports this on the fly, but not sure what the vista implementation was, there are plenty of tools out there that will allow you to change the partiton;
http://www.partition-tool.com/
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
as already said back everything up before you mess around with the partions.
thanks for this... the whole process looks rather painful though
i will give it a go at some point and then come back and tell you all how badly it went!! :grin:
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thanks for this... the whole process looks rather painful though
i will give it a go at some point and then come back and tell you all how badly it went!! :grin:
lol
moving the folders that make up the "user" folder; my music, my documents, my pictures etc is really painless, it's all handled by the move folder wizard so as far as the user is concerned the files are still in my documents etc
changing the partition is a little more risky though.
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thanks for this... the whole process looks rather painful though
i will give it a go at some point and then come back and tell you all how badly it went!! :grin:
lol
moving the folders that make up the "user" folder; my music, my documents, my pictures etc is really painless, it's all handled by the move folder wizard so as far as the user is concerned the files are still in my documents etc
changing the partition is a little more risky though.
if I just move the destination folders to E: would the user save processes in word, excel, whatever.. automatically default to this location? is there a way to specify this globally?
ideally, yes I would just like to say to the laptop - let C + E = C.. ie. just make C one big drive.. but if I can move all the default 'file saving' locations to E then that might do just as well without having to frig about with changing partitions
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Going to try the EASUS tool, will let you know if it works.
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F@ck me sideways and call me Shirley :laugh:
I've always liked using EASUS' software because it always does what it says on the tin and is easy to use and can cut times but holy cow this free tool is awesome!
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm
I managed to shrink a C: create another partition from the now free space, and then Merged the C: and E: WITHIN Windows in under 1 minute! though it needed to restart afterwards to run the tasks and it was on a Virtual Machine in Virtual Box. I'll be keeping that installed then....
As always backup anything you want to keep in the unlikely event it kills the partition and you can't recover the data.
It in action on rebooting:
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj183/jayton82/EASUSPartition.png)
Update:
Virtual machine won't boot now, gets stuck on the Windows 7 Starting Windows screen :grin: This is why you backup before you do something like this :laugh:
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F@ck me sideways and call me Shirley :laugh:
I've always liked using EASUS' software because it always does what it says on the tin and is easy to use and can cut times but holy cow this free tool is awesome!
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm
I managed to shrink a C: create another partition from the now free space, and then Merged the C: and E: WITHIN Windows in under 1 minute! though it needed to restart afterwards to run the tasks and it was on a Virtual Machine in Virtual Box. I'll be keeping that installed then....
As always backup anything you want to keep in the unlikely event it kills the partition and you can't recover the data.
It in action on rebooting:
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj183/jayton82/EASUSPartition.png)
Update:
Virtual machine won't boot now, gets stuck on the Windows 7 Starting Windows screen :grin: This is why you backup before you do something like this :laugh:
so in other words Shirley you're saying don't use this? :huh:
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It might be that I had done 3 operations on the partition and it's in a virtual machine, just trying to see if I can use the Windows 7 DVD to repair it.
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Going to try the EASUS tool, will let you know if it works.
i use this all the time. 100% success rate, and you can do it on the fly which is such a time saver. :grin:
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yeah, their software is usually spot on. I'm thinking it was because it was in a VM that screwed it up. or that I performed 3 operations on the same partition without rebooting.