Disk management problem

[criamora]

My laptop came preconfigured with a partition on the hard drive splitting it
into logical c:/ of 35.7Gb and d:/ of 35.8Gb. I am now down to 1.78 Gb free
on c:/ but more than 35.4Gb free on d:/.
My questions are: Can I simply move the partition on c:/ out? If so how?
should I move all data to d:/ and if so how do I ensure windows doesnt get
confused and continue to look at c:/? and finally is there a better
solution than these?
If someone could point me to an answer I would be grateful.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You may move the personal documents, downloaded files, music to the other partition. Applications can't be moved.

And you can move the shell folders such as My Documents (along with My Music, My Pictures and My Videos)

See:

Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310147


In addition, you may use a third-party software can help you analyze the disk space utilization.

Try DiskData from http://www.digallery.com/diskdata/

<Q>
DISKdata is a powerful explorer-like application for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista that analyzes disk space utilization. Selecting a disk volume or folder displays a summary of its contents in report or chart format. Statistics include file/folder actual size, allocated size, storage efficiency, storage slice, modification date, attributes, extension and version information.
<Q>


--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


My laptop came preconfigured with a partition on the hard drive splitting it
into logical c:/ of 35.7Gb and d:/ of 35.8Gb. I am now down to 1.78 Gb free
on c:/ but more than 35.4Gb free on d:/.
My questions are: Can I simply move the partition on c:/ out? If so how?
should I move all data to d:/ and if so how do I ensure windows doesnt get
confused and continue to look at c:/? and finally is there a better
solution than these?
If someone could point me to an answer I would be grateful.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My laptop came preconfigured with a partition on the hard drive
splitting it into logical c:/ of 35.7Gb and d:/ of 35.8Gb. I am now
down to 1.78 Gb free on c:/ but more than 35.4Gb free on d:/.

That's because you have been putting everything on C: and nothing on D:
Although C: is normally the default, the choice is always yours: you can
change from the default so that programs are installed on D:, data files are
saved there, downloads are saved there, etc.

You can now move data files to D: but not programs.

My questions are: Can I simply move the partition on c:/ out? If so
how?

By "move... out," I assume that you are asking about resizing the partitions
so that C: is larger and D: is smaller. Unfortunately, no version of Windows
before Vista provides any way of changing the existing partition structure
of the drive nondestructively. The only way to do what you want is 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.

should I move all data to d:/

Yes, you can do that. Will that free up enough space on C: for you?

and if so how do I ensure windows
doesnt get confused and continue to look at c:/?

Read here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310147

and finally is there a better solution than these?

Not necessarily better, but another choice is tranferring some program to
D:. Again, you can't literally move them, but you can uninstall them, then
reinstall them, choosing D: this time.