REVISED: Not enough disk space error msg

[Terry]

Some background info...
I recently installed a new motherboard and additional new
hard drive (120GB). The CPU is a Celeron 2.5GHz, and the
RAM is 512MB. I installed W2K Pro onto the new drive.
Setup shows the new drive as 122GB (Master), and the old
drive as 30022MB (Slave). The drives were partioned as
follows:
2.32GB = C "OS" (1.18MB free space)
14.6GB = D "PERSDOCS"
15.8GB = E "BACKUP"
46.5GB = F "PROGRAMS"
49.7GB = G "MUSICPHOTOS"
13.2GB = H "FLAN2" (This is the old drive with old info
saved to be transferred to appropriate locations as soon
as I was ready to do so. I don't think this drive was ever
partioned correctly since I don't appear to have access to
the drives full capacity, which is a separate issue.)

While I know, now, that I should have made my OS drive a
bit larger it was never my intention to store anything
other than the OS itself here, and install all programs to
one drive (F drive, PROGRAMS). ALL the drives, except the
OS drive (C), have mega free space available.

The Problem...
I did have my HP ScanJet up and running on this newly
built system, but all of a sudden it quit functioning, and
would not send prints to the printer. (Printer has been
tested separately in various other apps. and works just
fine.) So I re-installed the scanner software to the same
folder on the PROGRAMS drive (F). Still not functioning
properly. I uninstalled the scanner software and upon
attempting to re-install it as a new program (to the F
drive which has 40+Gig of free space), it continues
to come back with this "Severe" error message: "The
installation drive that you selected does not contain
enough free space. Please select another drive or create
more space on the desired drive." No matter which drive I
choose to install the scanner software to, it keeps coming
back with that same error message. What is wrong and how
can I fix it?

Thanks!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

As I mentioned in my reply to your previous post, 1.18 MBytes
of free space on the system partition is grossly inadequate.
You've painted yourself into a corner. 500 MBytes is an
absolute minimum. Make the drive larger and your problems
will most likely disappear.

 

[Terry]

Pegasus,

Sorry I didn't quite get the joke the first time around
about the size of my OS drive.

A few final questions for you...
I just need to know if this game plan to correct my
mistake will work. Since my OS drive is too small (@
2.32Gig total size), and I have plenty of space on the
other partitions, is it possible to:

1. Delete everything off of one of the other
drives/partitions, we'll call this drive SAVINGMYBUTT.
2. Delete everything off of one of a second
drive/partition, we'll call this OS-TEMP.
3. Copy the entire OS drive to the OS-TEMP drive.
4. Reformat the original OS drive and SAVINGMYBUTT drive
making the new OS drive at least 5Gig (twice it's current
size).
5. Copy the entire OS-TEMP drive back over to the newly
formatted, correctly sized OS drive.
6. Reboot

Problem solved? Or did I miss something? Probably (sigh).
Believe me, I GREATLY appreciate any and all help you can
give me.

Thanks so much!

 

[Torgeir Bakken (MVP)]

A few final questions for you...
I just need to know if this game plan to correct my
mistake will work. Since my OS drive is too small (@
2.32Gig total size), and I have plenty of space on the
other partitions, is it possible to:

1. Delete everything off of one of the other
drives/partitions, we'll call this drive SAVINGMYBUTT.
2. Delete everything off of one of a second
drive/partition, we'll call this OS-TEMP.
3. Copy the entire OS drive to the OS-TEMP drive.
4. Reformat the original OS drive and SAVINGMYBUTT drive
making the new OS drive at least 5Gig (twice it's current
size).
5. Copy the entire OS-TEMP drive back over to the newly
formatted, correctly sized OS drive.
6. Reboot

Problem solved? Or did I miss something? Probably (sigh).

Hi

The above is a recipe for disaster...

Here is what I would have done:

First, even 5 GB for the OS partition is to small as I see it.

Thinking about what e.g. new service pack installations need of free disk space

on the OS partition when they install (temporary files while installing, backup

files, the Servicepackfiles folder etc.), I would not recommend anything less
than 10 GB at least to avoid problems in the future. Also note that a lot of
applications just installs to the OS partition without any options to redirect
the installation to another drive.

Also, if you want to upgrade to Windows XP later on, 5 GB is way to small a
partition.

I would have created a OS partition of at least 15 GB. With your current
partition setup, I would have used a 3rd party product that can do
non-destructive resizing of existing partitions in this way.

To do a non-destructive resizing of existing partitions, you can use e.g.

BootIt NG (USD$34.95, it's shareware and have a trial period)
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

As long as your OS partition is the first partition on the disk, it is very
easy to make it larger by just deleting (or shrink) the adjacent partition and
then increase the OS partition into the freed up space. If your OS partition is
not the first partition on the disk, I would not have deleted the adjacent
partition (it would complicate matters a lot), in that case I would just
shrinked the adjacent partition to give the OS partition more space.

If you go with the shrinking solution, be sure you have a backup of the data in
case something goes wrong (but you should have a backup anyway, you do back up
your data I hope?)

I assume that your D: "PERSDOCS" (14.6 GB) partition is placed adjacent to the
OS partition, in that case I would have moved the data in D: to another drive
and then deleted the partition D: (you can only resize a partition into an
adjacent free space).

You can't resize a OS partition while the OS is running, so I would have booted
on a bootable CD containing the BootIt software and then resized the OS
partition to include all the space that the previous D: drive used, leaving you
with an OS partition that is 16.92 GB (2.32 GB + 14.6 GB).

When you after this boot up the OS again, it will most likely do a
automatically disk check because it detects the changed size, but that should
be all.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm afraid your approach won't work, for two reasons:
1. You can't copy many Win2000 system files while Win2000 is running, as
they are locked.
2. Your boot sector will not contain the information required for Win2000 to
boot.

You have three options:
- Use a commercial product such as PQMagic to resize your partitions. This
is the simplest option.
- Use a commercial product such as DriveImage or Ghost to save an image of
drive C: on some other drive.
- Pop your disk into some other Win2000 PC and perform your copying. This is
the most difficult option.

Please feel free to continue this thread but note that I'll soon be off the
air for a whole week. I shall monitor this message occasionally during the
next 14 hours, and again briefly some 24 hours from now. After this you need
to rely on other respondents.

 

[f/fgeorge]

The problem is that most programs want to load some part of themselves
into the Windows directory. You have no space left!
Get Partition Magic or something like it and have fun!
DO A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA FIRST!