How to change default drive from C to D?

[Malke]

Hello,

My laptop has two hard drives. C has Vista on it and along with updates
it's almost full. D drive is much larger. I'd like any new programs to
automatically install to D. Is there a way to do that?

Not automatically, no. When you install most programs you're given a choice
of where to install them. Choose your D: drive. In the meantime, you can
move your data to that drive, either by relocating your Documents, Music,
Pictures, etc. or by just moving the data to it. You can also uninstall
programs and reinstall them to the D: drive. Understand that some files
will always be put on C:.

Malke

 

[ST]

Hello,

My laptop has two hard drives. C has Vista on it and along with updates
it's almost full. D drive is much larger. I'd like any new programs to
automatically install to D. Is there a way to do that?

Thanks,

ST

 

[Raymond Shaw]

Hello,

My laptop has two hard drives. C has Vista on it and along with updates
it's almost full. D drive is much larger. I'd like any new programs to
automatically install to D. Is there a way to do that?

Automatically? Nope.

Shrink D, expand C.

Might need a third-party partition manager to get that done...

Google EASEUS (it's free).

 

[ST]

The ever esteemed Malke replied, with the utmost intelligence:

Not automatically, no. When you install most programs you're given a choice
of where to install them. Choose your D: drive. In the meantime, you can
move your data to that drive, either by relocating your Documents, Music,
Pictures, etc. or by just moving the data to it. You can also uninstall
programs and reinstall them to the D: drive. Understand that some files
will always be put on C:.

Malke

Hello,

Thanks for the info.

ST

 

[Dave T.]

Automatically? Nope.

Shrink D, expand C.

Might need a third-party partition manager to get that done...

Google EASEUS (it's free).

32 bit only...

Dave T.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello,

My laptop has two hard drives. C has Vista on it and along with updates
it's almost full. D drive is much larger. I'd like any new programs to
automatically install to D. Is there a way to do that?

You've already gotten answers to your question, but I'd like to add a
point and a suggestion.

Are you sure it has two drives? With a laptop, it's more likely that
it has *one* drive that's divided into two partitions.

Assuming the latter, your best course of action may be to change it to
a single partition instead of two. You can do that with third-party
software. Partition Magic is the best-known such program, but there
are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program is BootIt Next
Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day trial, so you
should be able to do what you want within that 30 days. I haven't used
it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but
it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things
*can* go wrong.

 

[ST]

The ever esteemed Ken Blake, MVP replied, with the utmost intelligence:

You've already gotten answers to your question, but I'd like to add a
point and a suggestion.

Are you sure it has two drives? With a laptop, it's more likely that
it has *one* drive that's divided into two partitions.

Assuming the latter, your best course of action may be to change it to
a single partition instead of two. You can do that with third-party
software. Partition Magic is the best-known such program, but there
are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program is BootIt Next
Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day trial, so you
should be able to do what you want within that 30 days. I haven't used
it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but
it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things
*can* go wrong.

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. Here's my computer hard disk info:

384GB hard drive capacity
With a 320GB serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm) and a 64GB solid-state
drive offers plenty of storage space.


I'm not all that geeky so I don't know if that is one or two separate
drives, but my Vista is on the C: 64 gig drive.


Thanks again,

ST

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

The ever esteemed Ken Blake, MVP replied, with the utmost intelligence:


Hello,

Thanks for the reply. Here's my computer hard disk info:

384GB hard drive capacity
With a 320GB serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm) and a 64GB solid-state
drive offers plenty of storage space.


I'm not all that geeky so I don't know if that is one or two separate
drives, but my Vista is on the C: 64 gig drive.

If what you say is accurate (an SSD and a hard drive), then my guess
that you had two partitions on a single drive wasn't correct.