Karin said:
I have a 5 yr old Sony computer running Windows XP.
The system has
the harddrive partitioned into a C and D with Windows
on the C. The
C is 99% full running Windows plus other software and
files such as
My Docs, music and picture software. Instead of
reformatting and
rebuilding the computer from scratch, is there a way
I can somehow
link the two drives so that the system thinks
everything is on one
larger drive?
What's on the D drive? In My Computer, what is the
Free and Used space for drive D? If D: is nearly full
too, then you're pretty much stuck and need a larger
hard drive or get rid of some things. With C: that
full, you're in danger of crashing hard, so until you
get this worked out you should minimize adding anything
new to the computer. In fact, you probably can't if
you really meant 99%. I'm surprised it'll even boot,
to be honest<g>.
Go to Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; and
run Disk Cleanup. Let it compress old files and delete
everything else it offers to delete. Omit cookies if
you wish and have some you don't want to lose. That
should give you a tiny bit of breathing room for the
interim. Do it often.
The first time, it might spend a lot of time
compressing files so be patient. It could take nearly
an hour depending on a lot of things.
If D: is hardly used and has lots of room there is a
reasonaly easy way to just move a lot of stuff over to
the D drive.
If your data is all backed up so you can afford to lose
everything, then a clean install of XP again would
allow you to create just one large drive most likely,
but you'd have to give more information to decide
whether that would be a good move or not.
Shenan mentioned Partition Magic, which IS a good
product, and can make it all one big drive for you,
theoretically without losing any data. Note the
"theoretically" though: BACKUP the stuff you don't
want to lose! Do it first! In fact, do it NOW because
you could be looking at a pending crash in the near
future.
Also, Partition Magic can NOT be loaded onto your
computer if you are 99% full on drive C:. There just
isn't room for it.
It's no big deal to have stuff on drive D; what is
your aversion to that?
Synopsis:
IFF D has tens of Gigs free:
-- Move your data files over to D or
-- Reinstall XP & make one large partition instead of
2. Or
-- Get partition magic and throw out enough stuff to
make room to install it, but you'll have to uninstall a
LOT of things. Do NOT use delete to get rid of
programs; you must Uninstall programs. This will be
time consuming.
When you decide what you want to do, come back and
explain; there will be lots of assistance available,
I'm sure.
