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m80

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My laptop has filled its C drive, 48.5 Gig of 50 Gig.
There is loads of unallocated space but I can't extend the drive, it's faded out. If I could that would be the simple answer.

I have other partitions to store most other things, such as XL / Word files, photo's / videos, music. There should be v little of my working data within the 'C'.

Looking at the properties of the 'stuff' within the 'C' It only adds up to less than 32Gig, 22 of that is Windows (and that's taking the larger of size or size on disc).

So I wonder if it is possible to extend.
And where the hidden 16.5Gig might be.

I can always reformat the 'C', but I always lose a lot of time to that. The most important stuff will be unaffected in the other partitions of course.

All thoughts appreciated.
 
Try deleting all the download files in the download directory. That can fill up quickly. Then check it’s deleting all the old windows update files. The are online instructions for that in many places.
Those 2 things are a good place to start.
 
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There are some free partition editing progs available such as partition magic. One of these may be able to extend the partition
 
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If you don't use hibernation check how big hiberfil.sys is in the root of C: You may need to un-hide protected operating system files first.

If it's worthwhile you can delete the hibernation file by running powercfg -h off in an admin command prompt
 
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Thanks both,
I had already deleted from the downloads.
Should I delete all updates and then just allow it to update as it wants later?
If i remember I can select the size of hibernation files?? Is that the back up files?
 
I had this issue on two of my Windows 10 PCs. It was down to Windows creating recovery partitions which block off a large chunk of the hard drive.

Check out this youtube vid.....
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I was a bit nervous about doing it myself, but I followed the process exactly and got back my hidden 9GB.
 
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After showing hidden files I'm still not seeing any large files.

Vilus you may have given me a clue.
I looked at the partitions, in computer management, next to the 'C', they also don't allow for extend. The partition next to the unallocated space does.
So I've created a new partition the same size as my 'Office' partition, that being mainly my data stuff. I am now copying from Office to the new partition.
After confirming a successful copy over to the new partition (it being an equal size of data should do that), I'll then delete the 'Office' partition.
As that is next to the 'C' I'm hopeful that there will be an extra 50Gig of unallocated space next to the 'C' that I can extend into.
 
Walla,
I now have 100Gb of 'C' drive,
with the additional 50Gig I have ample play room.

After deleting the old 'Office' partition,
and after assigning the old 'O' to the partition, and then replacing the title to 'Office', all looks to be as before. The desktop shortcuts work at least.

I've still 76Gig of unallocated space for future.

Thanks chaps, I'm glad I came here to ask.
 
Look in c:\windows\temp
Look in C:\Users\"youraccount name"\AppData\Local\Temp
delete all contents

delete unused user profiles
delete old unwanted system restore points

Look in C:\Program Files for uninstalled apps that have left their "droppings" behind
Look in C:\Program Files (x86) for uninstalled apps that have left their "droppings" behind
 
After confirming a successful copy over to the new partition (it being an equal size of data should do that), I'll then delete the 'Office' partition.
As that is next to the 'C' I'm hopeful that there will be an extra 50Gig of unallocated space next to the 'C' that I can extend into.

Glad it's sorted but I'm not sure the "next to" bit matters even on an old mechanical hard drive.

If you could see through the lid of a mechanical hard drive that has started writing data it doesn't do it in a serial fashion like an old gramophone record. What it does is start with a track in the centre of the platter and then alternates tracks either side of that. What you see is the heads flying rapidly side to side like a demented windscreen wiper. So data is not stored serially but all over the place.

How do I know this ?

When I worked in IT for a school, for demonstration purposes we pulled the lid off an old hard drive and made a vacuum molded new one in clear plastic. While this should strictly be done in a clean room the drive survived for quite a while and happily ran windows. The kids loved it.

The reason for designing a hard drive with heads whizzing about in this way is that it minimises seek time. All that clever ingenuity no longer matter with solid state drives.
 
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The link from Vilus talks of not being able to get to one partition due to another being in the way.
I imagine this is more the way Windows looks at it than the physical layout, perhaps a better management software could overcome the artificial barrier??

Anyway it worked, it was faster than the alternatives, so Ill run like this until / if I have to consider something else. By then I'll likely be forced into a newer machine that can handle all that extra stuff Microsoft decide is essential to my existence.

I used to spend much time learning these things and how they worked, and how best to set them up. Then the beggers changed them again so I learned not to try and keep up with them.
 
As you found, you can't extend to empty space if another partition is in the way in Windows disk management. Bit silly as 190 is right, the data is not stored sequentially anyway! When I have the same sort of issue I run a partition editor like Gparted, Parted Magic and I move the partitions around so I can extend into the free space. Always take a backup first!

Separating partitions for OS/Data is a bit old school now, this is how I used to do it but nowadays just install Windows to the SSD and have a Onedrive subscription set to sync Desktop/Docs/Pics folders to it, create you own extra folders in Onedrive and make sure anything important is saved there. That way you have a form of backup and if you ever need to wipe and start again, replace the drive or computer then you can do. If you use multiple computers ten you can have your desktop/docs/pics/onedrive sync between them and access files using the mobile app.
 
Might not help you but - I have a nice little cleaner on my computer, it removes loads of uneanted rubbish and cleans the system its free for private use . Glary Utilities .
 

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