Partitions low on space?

Stinicker

My main computer is on XP and I have the original 250GB Harddrive partitioned into my C drive at 50GB and my D into 200GB.

My C Drive is where Windows is located plus all my documents and all my music, I since had to move my Photos to the D drive to make room on the C drive for the ever expanding iTunes directory.

I also have a 1TB separate Hard drive with about 750GB on it.

I have reached the situation where I am sick of my files scattered all over the two C & D partitions and I am thinking do I have to format Windows and reinstall for to reclaim my 250GB Hard drive properly?

The current Windows installation is 3 and a half years old and it has slowed down quite abit especially when starting up and shutting down.

Elite_Etnisa

Theres a program called partition magic i believe , it enables you to edit your partitions . But seriously if i survive one month without reinstalling my windows its a miracle

bhickey

Stinicker wrote: »

I have reached the situation where I am sick of my files scattered all over the two C & D partitions and I am thinking do I have to format Windows and reinstall for to reclaim my 250GB Hard drive properly?

A reinstall is always useful if a machine is losing the will to live but it isn't necessarily required if all you really want is to clear some space and organise your data. If you want all your data in the one place then you could try moving your 'My Documents' from C: to .

To do this, right-click on My Documents and then click on <Properties>. Click on <Move> and then select the new folder on . Then do some filing/cleaning/reorganising.

$ausage$

There are many programs free and not Acronis is my fav but you pay. Anyway I would if I where you reinstall windows fresh and just transfer everything to your external first (prob take ages) and then just copy back when done. Also Partations are a good idea so stay with it, but I would maybe invest in another 250 get a mirror or 5 going but thats just my over kill kicking in

Overheal

I've reformatted my machine a number of times. The laptop has been done at least a dozen times anyway,

my take on it is anyone is silly if they use a single-volume disk. Its really that simple. Windows BSODs and then you're basically forced to format everything from the games to the downloads to the family photos to the 30gb of music that you listen to 2% of, but **** it we all love variety. Or find another computer and do some digging in your case to pull the files off I suppose, but thats an avoidable hassle if you had just had a \ drive.

For one thing, XP is old, and kinda stupid. Vista/7 make use of Libraries so it really doesnt matter where you choose to store the music, you could store it in several folders on several drives, and it would show up in your single Music Library folder. Mine for instances looks at my E:\ drive for music files, as well as the normal places in C:\, along with the Download folder in case I've just gotten something new. And then I dont worry about it. If I ever do have to back up the music onto an external at that point (its always wise to), you just need to go into the Library Folder and it will pull all of the music off all of those locations in one go.

But enough of that rant. I needed to try out my new keyboard.. but! Always use a Smaller System Volume, and a seperate File Drive, a \ drive. At least. You want to keep system small for the same reason you don't store 10gb of shyte on the desktop: It helps your system load faster. And, yes, in the event of failure, you lose much less. C:\ is just where I put stuff like my antivirus, web browser, defragger, and so on. \ is where I would actually install programs to like games and photoshop. And hell it even pays to have an E:\ where you can keep music and movies - because those files rarely change, meaning you save a lot of time by excluding a major chunk of files that never have to be involved in a defrag.

I'd certainly, after 3 years, go ahead and reformat because it does give you a nice fresh start. I like to do it more often than that sometimes, but anyway. I do not recommend doing just a C:\ though, many experiences and countless lost videos of my brother's baby pit bull and priceless family photos have taught me otherwise. There are too many advantages to using a multi-volume setup. For XP I hear it's recommended that you only really need a 15gb partition to live happily but might as well go for 25 or 30 i'd say.

Capt'n Midnight

+1

anyway , do the usual checks for malware, if none found then do a reinstall, if still slow do a clean install


One HUGE advantage of having windows on a small partition is to make recovery much easier - if you haven't a backup do that first and then come back here