Set a default installation drive or increase size of C: drive?

[Blaise]

I recently purchased a laptop with Vista Home Premium. The hard drive was
partitioned into a C: drive (approx. 29 Gb) and a D: drive (approx. 105 Gb).
I've installed Microsoft Office, the trial version of Visual Studio, Google
Pack, and a few miscellanous programs. Most of the software defaults to
install on the C: drive and doesn't provide an option to re-direct the
installation to a different drive.

The trial of Visual Studio does allow you to specify a directory, but still
installs most of the product on C:.

Is there a way to "set" a default installation location in Vista so that
software that installs without letting the user specify an installation drive
will automatically install to, for example, drive D: instead of C:?

Or is there a way to increase the size of the C: drive without reformatting
the hard drive?

Thanks! -- Blaise

 

[philo]

I recently purchased a laptop with Vista Home Premium. The hard drive was
partitioned into a C: drive (approx. 29 Gb) and a D: drive (approx. 105 Gb).
I've installed Microsoft Office, the trial version of Visual Studio, Google
Pack, and a few miscellanous programs. Most of the software defaults to
install on the C: drive and doesn't provide an option to re-direct the
installation to a different drive.

The trial of Visual Studio does allow you to specify a directory, but still
installs most of the product on C:.

Is there a way to "set" a default installation location in Vista so that
software that installs without letting the user specify an installation drive
will automatically install to, for example, drive D: instead of C:?

Or is there a way to increase the size of the C: drive without reformatting
the hard drive?

Thanks! -- Blaise

The default installation partition is a function of the software...
you usually get a choice...but I suppose...not always.

To non-destructively repartition your drive...use disk management..Vista now
has that capability.

 

[Blaise]

Philo, Thanks for your response. It should have worked because, based on your
response, I did find the Vista disk management feature. Unfortunately, the
"extend" option was grayed out for Drive C:. I searched the Internet and
found information on using the "diskpart.exe" utility that's DOS-based.
However, that utility also could not extend the size of C: due to
insufficient space. I had "shrunk" my larger drive D: to free up space to be
allocated to C: but it's possible that I have to make more space available on
C: simply to perform the extend operation.

At this point, I think I'll try Lenovo tech support to see if they have a
suggestion. I can't imagine they haven't had this problem come up before. I
mean these days the Acrobat Reader is 80+ Mb!

Your reply was really helpful, however, because it pointed me in the right
direction. I'll try to remember to post back to this thread if I'm able to
successfully accomplish my goal.

Thanks again!

Blaise

 

[philo]

Philo, Thanks for your response. It should have worked because, based on your
response, I did find the Vista disk management feature. Unfortunately, the
"extend" option was grayed out for Drive C:. I searched the Internet and
found information on using the "diskpart.exe" utility that's DOS-based.
However, that utility also could not extend the size of C: due to
insufficient space. I had "shrunk" my larger drive D: to free up space to be
allocated to C: but it's possible that I have to make more space available on
C: simply to perform the extend operation.

At this point, I think I'll try Lenovo tech support to see if they have a
suggestion. I can't imagine they haven't had this problem come up before. I
mean these days the Acrobat Reader is 80+ Mb!

Your reply was really helpful, however, because it pointed me in the right
direction. I'll try to remember to post back to this thread if I'm able to
successfully accomplish my goal.

Thanks again!

You need to shrink your D: drive to create room for extending C:

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Blaise.

Or is there a way to increase the size of the C: drive without
reformatting
the hard drive?

Assuming that your Drive D: is only partly filled and has a lot of empty
space, there is a multi-step workaround that I've used and others have
reported success with. It uses no third-party application, just Disk
Management (diskmgmt.msc), which Philo mentioned. You said that Extend
volume wouldn't work for you because there is no contiguous free space
following your Drive C:.

If your Drive D: now has only 30 GB used, for example, you could take these
steps:

1. Defrag Drive D: to get all the files to the front of the volume.

2. Using DM's Shrink Volume, shrink your Drive D: to 40 GB (leaving some
"elbow room"), creating 65 GB of Free Space at the end of the disk.

3. Using DM, create a new 65 GB volume in the Free Space; let's call it
Drive X:.

4. Copy everything from Drive D: to the new Drive X:, using any method
you choose: Xcopy, Robocopy, Drag'n'drop, or... (Just be sure to get all
files, hidden or otherwise.

5. Delete Drive D:, leaving 40 GB of Free Space immediately following
Drive C:.

6. Extend Drive C: into the 40 GB of Free Space.

7. Rename Drive X: to Drive D:.

That's the basic pattern. You can modify it to fit your actual needs. For
example, you might want to extend Drive C: by only 20 GB; if so, note that
the wizard asks "how much" in MB, not GB, so tell it 20,000, not 20.

Please post back with your results so that others can learn from your
experience.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Blaise]

Philo,

Thanks for following up. I did shrink my D: drive, but C: wouldn't recognize
the extra space as being available. I'll follow R.C.'s instructions and see
if I can get C: to recognize the available space. I'll report back.

Blaise

 

[Blaise]

R.C.,

Thanks for the additional detail. I'll report back on my success or failure.

Blaise