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hard disc space problem

Hello

My laptop is running out of space on C drive.I have good amount of space in other drives.Can I transfer some space like 5GB or more from other drives to C without re installing windows again.Is there any software available for this.Please help me to solve this problem

Many many thanx!!:)

kishoregk8
Newbie Poster
4 posts since Aug 2008
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Hi. When you say 'other drives' my answer below assumes you are talking about other partitions on the same hard disk.
If your hard drive has several partitions, you can use software to manage the disk space very easily. My personal favourite is Acronis disk director, but there is also one called partition magic.
These are commercial products and cost a reasonable amount of money, however if you only intend to do this once, then simply google 'partition resizer' and you will no doubt find some basic free utilities. I personally have never tried any of the free ones so perhaps someone else here can recommend one if they have used it.
By the way, messing around with partitions can be dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. Back up everything before you start. Better still, use something like Norton Ghost to do an image file of your entire hard drive off to an external USB bus powered hard drive so you can recover everything should it all go blah! (technical term :-)
Best wishes
V

valerium
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7 posts since Jan 2006
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Remember if you have windows vista you can resize drive using the disk manager in the control panel if you dont then I would recommend partition magic as well its very good.

gurukid22
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A better option might be to relocate youe Documents onto the second partition - as long as the partition is large enough -

Firstly you will need to open EXPLORER - select the C: - right click on Documents and settings and select PROPERTIES. Tge screen that pops up will show you the size of the folder ( you may need to wait a couple of minute until the full size of the folder) - then check you have sufficient space available on the second partition.

if you have follow the instructions here:

1. Right click on the My Documents
2. Left click on Properties
3. Choose a different location(Target) for the My Documents Folder - this is where you select the second partition. The transfer will take a while to complete.
4. Defragment both partitions
5. It may be worth considering defraging the second partition first, moving the Pagefile, defraging in the primary partition, returning the Pagefile to the first partition. There are arguable benefits to this but it is by no means mandatory and the machine would run perfectly well without carrying out this step.

I hope this helps

Jeff

HelpingHands-IT
Light Poster
40 posts since Aug 2007
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Can concur with HelpingHands-IT... actually you can do this with ALL your personal folders. Best though to create a folder of same name in the other partition, as this makes the transfer process much easier. Defragging tho has long been proven to make little difference in modern systems.

Also, you can use the Disk Cleanup tool to remove the excess of "shadow copies" Vista creates along the way, esp when installing new software. I've seen 50GB or more cleared just by doing this.

kaninelupus
Practically a Posting Shark
860 posts since Jul 2009
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Hey,

First time poster, and i am currently having the same issue.

What I have decided to do for the issue is reinstall Vista on my C drive, and then use the registry to change the default install path for all programs to say, D drive.

My only problem is, it has been a few years since mucking around with my computers, and I'm hoping someone will know the correct string to edit, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Specialed83
Newbie Poster
1 post since Jul 2009
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Not the best idea, as if secondary HDD crashes, your Windows install can die along with it. Better off changing the location of your personal folder instead (which can be done via each folders properties panel on the location tab in Vista.

kaninelupus
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860 posts since Jul 2009
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you dont need to be messing with the registry to achieve this - you just need to carryout custom/expert installations and direct the installation to your secondary drive.

HelpingHands-IT
Light Poster
40 posts since Aug 2007
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you dont need to be messing with the registry to achieve this - you just need to carryout custom/expert installations and direct the installation to your secondary drive.

If you read the question, he wanted to set the DEFAULT install directory. To change thedefault setting (again, NOT recommended), you are either looking at registry tweak or 3rd party utility

kaninelupus
Practically a Posting Shark
860 posts since Jul 2009
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Sorry 4 the late reply,Partition magic works perfectly,no problems at all..Thanx a lot all of you,you are very helpful :)

kishoregk8
Newbie Poster
4 posts since Aug 2008
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Sorry 4 the late reply,Partition magic works perfectly,no problems at all..Thanx a lot all of you,you are very helpful :)

Worked like a charm for me too !! Thanks

rupertmckenzie
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11 posts since Sep 2009
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This question has already been solved

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