How to manage disk space in XP

[welland99]

I have two hard disks in my PC. Both are 320 GB.

One of them has a C partition on which I install all my applications. This is formatted with NTFS to 25 GB. This partition is almost full and things are starting to complain.

The rest of that hard disk is formatted into four partitions, none of which is full. But there is no space which is not included in a partition.

The second hard disk has one partition of about 15GB, but the rest of the space is not formatted.

What is the easiest (best) way to increase the size of my C partition?
Can a partition span multiple disks?
Can I reduce the size of a partition without losing data contained on it?

Advice would be much appreciated.

 

[balge]

Hi
this might help

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP

cheers!

 

[st13phil]

What is the easiest (best) way to increase the size of my C partition?

Get yourself a copy of PartitionMagic.

 

[John]

Get yourself a copy of PartitionMagic.

I think this is the only way with a system (in your case C partition and on XP.

Alternatively, for free, I'd consider re-homing stuff from C: to another partition.

I'd be surrprised if 25GB was program files so I imagine you have your music, pictures and documents on there?

If so, you can actually move all that, and then point the 'My Documents' type-folders where you have then re-located them to. Actually if you change the path of these, I think it will ask if you want to move them which is even easier.

 

[st13phil]

Long time since I've done it, but I seem to remember that if you drag and drop the My Documents folder to another drive, Win XP has the smarts to update all the pointers for you automatically.

 

[dulayj]

Hard drives are cheap-get yourself another 1GB for approx £40-samsung F3 or WD-try Scan.co.uk.
Otherwise as others have suggested try 3rd party hard drive partition utility-most will have a free 30 day trial you can use.

 

[Rory]

Some drive manufacturers, Seagate, for example, offer free versions of Acronis Disk Director but you must have at least one of their drives (the software looks for it on install).

 

[corned]

This is one of the biggest problems with the Windows system. You cannot properly separate data and applications.

I'd love to have a C: drive which ran all the programs, applications, memory/page file, etc, but keep ALL the data on say drive D: - which can then be backed up safely and completely whenever I like because no resource still has needless hold of a bunch of files I want to back up.

Partition Magic or similar will allow you to resize your partitions to accommodate the growing file store, but you need to ensure EVERYTHING is backed up beforehand. It is not unknown for PM to c0ck this up and leave you with an unbootable disc which needs reinstalling from scratch.

For a bonus point, guess how I know that?

 

[John]

Hard drives are cheap-get yourself another 1GB for approx £40-samsung

Now that is really expensive - even if it were a solid state disk...

This is one of the biggest problems with the Windows system. You cannot properly separate data and applications.

I'd love to have a C: drive which ran all the programs, applications, memory/page file, etc, but keep ALL the data on say drive D: - which can then be backed up safely and completely whenever I like because no resource still has needless hold of a bunch of files I want to back up.

You can have this - or even:

C: Windows
D: Program Files
E: Data etc.

...then you can have Windows fully defragged and booting up as fast as possible.

However, I have something similar to what you suggest:

Disk 1: C: Windows and Program Files
Disk 1: D: Data (also with backup of E
Disk 2: E: Backup (also with backup of D

Then, if I ever need to wipe and re-install, I just wipe out the first partition with a format and install a fresh install.

Don't have to touch data etc.

 

[John]

However, I have something similar to what you suggest:

Disk 1: C: Windows and Program Files
Disk 1: D: Data (also with backup of E: )
Disk 2: E: Music (also with backup of D: )

Then, if I ever need to wipe and re-install, I just wipe out the first partition with a format and install a fresh install.

Don't have to touch data etc.

Cocked that one up - corrected in bold...

Also - if you wanted to separate out programs and Windows, you would have to remember to install programs, when you do, onto D: