Free Up space on hard drive

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Windows XP computer, not sure if it's SP1 or 2, will have to find out. His C
Drive is 9 GIG. He has it filled and we're deleting files and unused
programs. He has an 80 GIG D drive. His current problem is while we're
looking at what to eliminate from the C Drive to make space to run Defrag and
Clean Up so his PowerPoint program will run. He's created a large PPT file.

Is it a good idea to run PPT from the D drive, or does it have to reside on
the C Drive? He can't find his disks so I wondered how I can move that
PowerPoint program to the D Drive?

I can't think of any other information I need to give you.

Any suggestions as to what to do with this small hard drive to make it work
better? It is running other programs just fine but is very slow with
PowerPoint and it wasn't always until after he added sound to his
presentation.

Thanks
 
Oceana said:
Windows XP computer, not sure if it's SP1 or 2, will have to find
out. His C Drive is 9 GIG. He has it filled and we're deleting files
and unused programs. He has an 80 GIG D drive. His current problem is
while we're looking at what to eliminate from the C Drive to make
space to run Defrag and Clean Up so his PowerPoint program will run.
He's created a large PPT file.

Is it a good idea to run PPT from the D drive, or does it have to
reside on the C Drive? He can't find his disks so I wondered how I
can move that PowerPoint program to the D Drive?

I can't think of any other information I need to give you.

Any suggestions as to what to do with this small hard drive to make
it work better? It is running other programs just fine but is very
slow with PowerPoint and it wasn't always until after he added sound
to his presentation.
Click to expand...

A bigger drive is the cheap and fast solution. Last time I checked, you
could find 40 Gig drives in the bottom of CrackerJack boxes.
 
You cannot, generally, move a program - you need the cd to uninstall then
reinstall
(you can sometimes move a v.simple program)
 
Oceana Rose said:
Windows XP computer, not sure if it's SP1 or 2, will have to find out. His
C
Drive is 9 GIG. He has it filled and we're deleting files and unused
programs. He has an 80 GIG D drive. His current problem is while we're
looking at what to eliminate from the C Drive to make space to run Defrag
and
Clean Up so his PowerPoint program will run. He's created a large PPT
file.

Is it a good idea to run PPT from the D drive, or does it have to reside
on
the C Drive? He can't find his disks so I wondered how I can move that
PowerPoint program to the D Drive?

I can't think of any other information I need to give you.

Any suggestions as to what to do with this small hard drive to make it
work
better? It is running other programs just fine but is very slow with
PowerPoint and it wasn't always until after he added sound to his
presentation.

Thanks
Click to expand...

First, get and run ccleaner www.ccleaner.com and let it remove all
temporary files.

Then open Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, General,
Temporary Internet Files, Settings, and do two things: reduce the folder
size and move it to the larger drive.

These two actions can recover hundreds of megabytes.

The PowerPoint file can be run from any attached drive. It does not have
to be on the C drive. Move it to D.

It's not so easy to move an installed program to another disk without
rerunning the install (you're probably looking for the MS Office CD).

However, the best bet is to clear enough space to download and install the
Acronis TrueImage demo version, get a new hard disk and clone the C drive to
it. Then swap the new hard disk in in place of the old one.

In my area, an 80 gig drive can be had for CDN$53. It's harder to find 40
gig drives, but they are in the sub-CDN$50 range. The price differential
isn't large, so go for the 80 gig.

This task won't take you long (for reference, it would take me an hour or
less, much of which would be spent waiting for the clone to complete) and
will prevent you from spending hours trying to make the old drive work.
Compare the values of your time, his time, and the time the machine isn't
working to that $53.

This approach will keep all programs working exactly the way they are now..
except that they will actually work since they will have the space they
need.

You may have to temporarily remove the D drive to do this easily, but it is
easy to do if you are at all familiar with installing hard disks. The
hardest part will be keeping track of the jumper settings.

You should also consider that 9 gig drives haven't been made for quite some
time, and that drives do have a limited life span. Check the MTBF (mean
time before failure) for that drive to get an idea of what its remaining
usable life is. It's going to have to be replaced at some point, so now is
probably a good time to do this.

HTH
-pk
 
Why not simply move the large PowerPoint file to the D drive? It should run fine from there.

Next, think about buying a larger hard drive and move the OS to the new drive.
 
Hello Oceana:

When you say "drive", do you mean "partition"?

Respectufully, it is quite possible to move the PP software to the D:
partition-- or all the program files for that matter. However, you cannot do
this by simply moving the program files via cut and paste; the program would
not "understand" where it is. The correct procedure involves using the Disk
Management process (in the Computer Management window) to "mount" the D:
partition to the pathname. It is not a straight-forward process for most
users but it would work fine once accomplished.

Another, perhaps better alternative would be to purchase a 3rd party
partition manager like Partition Magic (Symantec) which can re-size
partitions without losing any data (it is still a good idea to back up--
ALWAYS). You could then make the C: partition as large as you want-- within
the confines of the physical disk size.

Good luck

Mark
 
The answer is relevant if you follow advice to get a larger HD and the
HD you get is > 137G... if so, you want:
- a BIOS that can "see" > 137G (else typically lock up on POST)
- XP SP2
- XP installation CD that is at least XP SP1

You cannot safely install XP Gold (SP0) on a HD > 137G, because that
version has no support for such large drives.

You can install XP SP1 on a HD > 137G, but should update to SP2 asap
thereafter - because while most SP1 code is OK over 137G, some bits of
code (e.g. that which handles the error dump) are not. An SP1 on an
over 137G may be a ticking time bomb, liable to corrupt the HD should
particular circumstances arise!

Do you mean...
- 1 HD with 9G set as C:
....or...
- 1 9G HD as C: + 1 80G HD as other letter(s)
....?

9G is small for total storage, and I'd suggest an upgrade, but a 9G C:
with more space available (either of the above scenarios) may well be
quite easy to live with. Yes, there'd be labor involved in moving
data off C: etc., but there are benefits to this approach as well.

I would do the following:
- use Disk Cleanup to purge temp and TIF files from C:
- also in Disk Cleanup, purge all SR points save the last one
- reduce System Restore usage on C: to (say) 400M
- disable System Restore on all other HD volumes

Next, for each user account, I'd do these steps in this order:
- IE, purge web cache and limit this to 20M or less
- right-drag, Move the My Music to a non-C: HD volume
- right-drag, Move My Pictures to a non-C: HD volume
- right-drag, Move My Videos to a non-C: HD volume
- right-drag, Move Desktop to a non-C: HD volume
- right-drag, Move CD Burning to a non-C: HD volume
- right-drag, Move My Documents to a non-C: HD volume
- rename the above relocated directories to taste
- create a new off-C: HD location for OE mail
- OE, To..Opt.. Maintenance; relocate OE mail store as above
- close OE, and then start it again, await the data transfer
- clear Trash in OE to taste, then compact mailboxes

You can also delete (or move off C:) certain subtrees within the
Windows subtree to free up potentially over 1G of space (be careful!):
- $NtUninstall*$
- $hf_mig$
- ServicePackFiles
- DownloadedInstallations
- RegisteredPackages
- SoftwareDistribution (expect to be "blocked" on that one!)

The application PowerPoint should stay where it is, unless you are
prepared to uninstall, re-install and re-patch it. You cannot drag
substantial Windows applications about, the way you can do so with My
Music, My Videos, Desktop etc.

OTOH, data files can reside anywhere you like... e.g. the large .PPT
can be off C: on some other HD volume.
In my area, an 80 gig drive can be had for CDN$53. It's harder to find 40
gig drives, but they are in the sub-CDN$50 range. The price differential
isn't large, so go for the 80 gig.
Click to expand...
This task won't take you long (for reference, it would take me an hour or
less, much of which would be spent waiting for the clone to complete)
Click to expand...

You'd have to use a tool to migrate the installation from existing C:
to the new HD, and that can pose issues... make sure the new
installation works, before wiping the old C:! Simply copying all
files from C: to the new HD and then swapping over will NOT work, you
have to image the volume using something like BING, or perhaps an
imaging utility that may ship with the new HD.
You should also consider that 9 gig drives haven't been made for quite some
time, and that drives do have a limited life span. Check the MTBF (mean
time before failure) for that drive to get an idea of what its remaining
usable life is.
Click to expand...

A more accurate assessment would be to test both HDs with the free HD
Tune utility from www.hdtune.com - that lets you test temperature
(expect a blank reading from the 9G, it's too old to be expected to
support this functionality), see the SMART counter and raw data
details, and do a surface scan of the entire HD.

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Click to expand...
Never turn your back on an installer program
 
=?Utf-8?B?T2NlYW5hIFJvc2U=?= said:
Is it a good idea to run PPT from the D drive, or does it have to reside on
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter which drive it's installed on.
the C Drive? He can't find his disks so I wondered how I can move that
Click to expand...

But a new CD for the app. you want to use. Take care of it this time.
 
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