I have a 320 GB HDD in my PC. It is broken into 4 eqal partions of about 76 GBs each. One holds Win 7, an early version. Another is for the backups of that drive. (it filled up long ago, sioo I stopped using it as a back up partition. Of the remaining 2 Parts, one holds a version of XP and the other is basically empty.
I had no idea how much I would like this new OS. So this drive filled up very quickly. it got past me. First it slowed down dramatically, then I noticed about a week ago that it was not opening up folders if I clicked on them. I did thorough cleaning jobs to no avail. Today I noticed that there are only 5 GB of free space on my 76GB C: partition. PC is almost at a standstill except for the internet. Opening Files and folders is really becoming a chore. Even trying to move stuff to an external drive cannot be done at this point.
With all that in mind, Is there an easy way to clean this up or preferably, is there a way to combine all four partitions without losing Win 7? I do not care about the data on the 3 remaining Partitions. I do wish to keep the 70 gb of data on the C-drive partition, then combine the 4 parts. Can what I want to do be done?
Thanks in advance
Donnie616
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Donnie616,
Your OS is not filling up that partition, but your temporary and Data files could be.
Do you know how to 'move' your Windows 7 profile to a different partition?
You can also manually move any Pictures/Songs/Movies that you may have stored on the OS partition.
A good junk/temp file remover is from www.ccleaner.com - I use it extensively for just that purpose.
I would personally never have an OS partition more than about 30 GB.
Maximize your storage space - not your OS partition.
The OS partition is expendable - you can always re-load if there is a disaster.
The only thing you want to protect is the data - which is often irreplacable.
OS and application files can always be reinstalled.
Ok thanks. I will take what you say under advisement. I have no pictures or music. My space is occupied by downloaded zip files and EXE files for all manner of software. Also many documents and PDF files.(large ones) I* mentioned that I did a thorough cleaning. well all temps and temp internet files and junk files are purged. I would like to use both of your ideas. Try to get my original space back and keep OS partition small. I just never have done either of those things.
Now my question is, how do I keep a OS drive to just 30 GB? How do I make sure it does not fill up and how do I keep my downloads separate?
Hath, are you following me again. (I am glad you are)
thanks again
yes i am, my good friend!
if i were you, i would tackle the problem like this:
1) backup all data to a separate drive.
2) format the whole drive, delete all partitions.
3) install your favorite OS on a 30 gb partition - 'C'. increase this to 50 if the computer is used for games and all.
4) create 3 more partitions.
4a) D should contain all your important data. PDFs, Office work, things you cannot live without.
4b) E should contain all music and movies and the other expendables (including scratch files, torrent temps, etc)
4c) F should contain your backups (though it is recommended to keep your backups on a separate drive)
notice the partition structure - expendable, important, expendable, important.
this is known to increase the life span of the drive (dont ask me to prove it though - i cant, i am just speaking from personal experience)
all partitions should be NTFS and should be defragged at least once a month.
this may look like a lot of work, but if you do it properly, it shouldnt take more than a day.
and this will ease a lot of troubles later on.
hathehariken.
Just thought of something else. I cannot access my data because the folders will not open. If I can get a certain folder to open, I can erase many copies of windows 7 ISO files that are already on disks. Some people play games and do email. I download things, especially new and strange and beta OS's. Then I obviously should get rid of the ISO's after I burn them to disk. My wife accuses me of never throwing anything away and she stands correct. Anyways, the point of this is to say that I cannot open my folders that contain those iso's, so as to remove them from my life.
i think i should support your wife on this argument :)
my mom accuses me of the same thing.....
i still have about 6 or 7 1.2 gb drives!! - still working.
the 'Ultimate Boot CD' should be of help here.
download and burn, boot from that, delete a few files that needs to be deleted.
boot back into win7 and continue deleting, burning, cleaning up.
if you have a linus liveCD, that can do the work too (provided it has NTFS support)
if you are a chronic downloader like me - dual 1mbps hookups - always choked! then you should invest in a bigger HDD
those 1TB and 1.5TB HDDs are pretty cheap these days.
hathehariken
I just found this information about "moving" an entire profile on Windows 7 and am going to try it on mine.
This would be a great way to auto-manage the default download location for most things.
http://www.starkeith.net/c
Donnie, i wouldnt recommend that for you.
to easy to delete something accidentally.
when working around the C drive, everyone is cautious - you included.
on another partition, one is not so cautious - leaving it prone to user errors.
if you forget your user data is stored on D or E or L, and you delete it, there you go. :(
i was refering to the moved folders - not the entire profile (what happens if you delete the user from the admin account??)
as mentioned on the page you linked, only certain folders can be moved.
a "My Pictures" folder on F drive is confusing.
Donnie sometimes forgets things.
It would be all to easy for Donnie to accidentally delete "My Pictures" from F drive, because it normally resides on C, and he may forget that he moved it to F
i am not saying that your information is faulty. nor am i saying that it shouldnt be done.
what i am saying is Donnie should not do this, for what i know of him from our previous interactions.
i meant neither you nor Donnie any disrespect.
hathehariken.
Donnie616,
Storing your personal (critical) data anywhere BUT on your OS partition is one of the most basic recommendations made anywhere - any forum - any lecture - any classroom.
Especially because of the possibility (probability) of a Windows OS becoming corrupt, you are leaving your data at the mercy of the OS.
In the simplest possible terms, you should never leave a data file on your OS partition that you actually want to see tomorrow.
I will unsubscribe to avoid further comments about my recommendations - but you are being given bad advice.
copied from my post 25219307
1) backup all data to a separate drive.
2) format the whole drive, delete all partitions.
3) install your favorite OS on a 30 gb partition - 'C'. increase this to 50 if the computer is used for games and all.
4) create 3 more partitions.
4a) D should contain all your important data. PDFs, Office work, things you cannot live without.
4b) E should contain all music and movies and the other expendables (including scratch files, torrent temps, etc)
4c) F should contain your backups (though it is recommended to keep your backups on a separate drive)
-----------------
what younghv says is right, user data should never be kept on the system drive.
i already suggested to keep all important data on a separate partition (on point 4a)
@younghv:
i fail to see what is bad advice.
we are all learning here - please tell us.
hathehariken.
I run windows 7 and have a set way of dealing with Windows (regardless of version) and partitions that is very similar to whats already been suggested as best practice.
I have 2 drives in a RAID0 and 1 single drive, I partition the RAID into 30GB for the OS (Excessive) and the rest as a Data partition to which I redirect Documents, Music , Video (I work with this a lot) and Game installs (as they take up a lot of space)
On the Single drive I backup the OS and important doc's (via scheduled Acronis backup) as well as have my Downloads folder (torrents etc) on there as NTFS partitions fragment more than say FAT partitions.
I also redirect my temp folders to D:\Temp in order to deal with large files.
I use Diskeeper to automatically keep fragmentation to a minimum.
Be aware that there are still some issues with Windows 7 such as Video playback as some settings not being saved so if you will feel the affects of these issues I would stick with XP.
Drive organisation pic
Oh and I move the Page file to, in my case to the D drive (as RAID is faster than the single drive) but you may need to move it to an other drive to increase performance.
If you follow the method I the space your user profile uses should not significantly impact the space available on your C drive.
I very much hope this helps, best of British luck to you however you chose to resolve your issue.
PS Easeus partition manager is a great tool and FREE!
As requested hathehariken, thanks for the complement. ;0)
Disk Management
Sorry to see younghv go. hath, thank you for remembering that I forget things, but I will be OK(I hope and Think) And to you sir, Rob, I like your set up and will give it a try. Which drive is the raid 0? I think I have my answer. However I need to get away from this KB for tonite. See you on the morrow with an update. Ion my progress.
Thanks and good nite.
donnie, you have lots of help here, but i want to remember you of a very good tool for managing partitions : Bootit-ng www.terabyteunlimited.com/
it will let you resize any partition without data loss
i don't know your setup; but you should have something like this :
AAABBBCCCDDD wherin A = win7 i suppose B= backup C = XP and D = empty
if you want to have a bigger A partition, you must make space next to it (here it is easy, since you don't want the B part so delete the partition) then resize A
if you do not have space next to it, you make it where you can, then SLIDE the partition in the direction to get free space next to it
Thank you all. I know what I am going to do but have one question left. how do I move my desktop from one partition to another? Or should I just leave it where it is and move things around as per Nobus. Nobus, you gave me the idea for the Bootit ng disc wen I 1st joined EE. Have not learned how to use it too well, but you truly guided me in the right direction. it is a very good tool. As is Easesus, by the way. I will get this done with all your help and I do thank you all.
To redirect the Desktop you use a Microsoft powertoy" called "TweakUI" and configure "Special folders".
If you find the need for bootable CD's then in addition to Nobus's excellent recommendation search for a MiniPE disk by Digiwiz (Saved my life on more occasions than I can count) and to deal with Vista problems I use VistaPE by Windooh.
Oh and should you wish to change the appearance of your folders once organised (for a polished professional look) then right click on the folder\Customise\Change icon.
And use http://www.iconfinder.net/
Oh well, I thought I knew what I was going to do. Now there is more advice. All I really know is that I must do something and that I have to split points for all the excellent suggestions.
With all the other computing issues I have in my life now, Even though this PC is my #1and main computer, it has been shut off and on the back burner for 2 days. I have to figure out how to loosen up its grip on how it keeps the folders that contain many GB's of ISO files from opening. then I will be able to moev or delete them. Those are the files that are taking up unneccessary space. So thank you all for your help.
My points will be given for the suggestions by you all that I deem the most feasible for me according to my expertise. I will wait a few hours for any last responses, then close this.
Thank you all.
well -there is lots of advice, but imho you just make a decision on what you want to do (eg : keep it simple, make most out of it qua speed or possibilities,...) and follow that line.
i'm sure - and i'm sure you know from your posts here, that you make many mistakes, and so do i, and everybody.
The point is that you learn from the mistakes AND enjoy doing it.
Good luck!
yep, we all enjoy making mistakes! :)
the learning possibilities are endless.
just make sure that the same mistake doesnst happen twice :)
if you decide to move your desktop or my docs or other folders like that to a different drive, create a folder called "~system" and put all the specific folders inside that.
the tilde (the ~ symbol) keeps the folder at the very top of the folder list, and you would remember not to touch it.
the ~ symbol is a permitted sigil by the NTFS file system and the FAT32 file system, but not FAT16.
you neednt worry though, FAT16 is pretty old, and not used nowadays.
good luck!
hathehariken.
Sorry I think I've thrown to much info at you :0s, didn't mean to confuse you!
To summarize:
1. Backup your important data.
2. Delete and/or resize your partitions as follows:
C (OS Partition) - 20-30GB
D (Data Partition)- Remaining space
E (Store Partition)- Ideally should be a separate disk for backups (single partition)
3. Arrange your data as follows:
C - Windows
D - Data, i.e. Documents, Desktop (via TweakUI), Music, Video, Games, Software install files, Temporary files (Right click on "My Computer/Advanced/Environm
E - Store (Backup) your Downloads and Backup images should be kept here especially if you use Bittorrent Emule etc as these types of downloads cause a lot of fragmentation.
I hope this makes the method that IMO works best, clear and is not in any way confusing, and no disrespect to Nobus (you are obviously highly skilled) but I completely disagree with his opinion. Partitions ARE a necessity especially if you have large disks or RAID sets, I have NEVER had a single problem caused by using this method.
Best of luck and as Nobus says regardless of what happens please enjoy the process!
Redirect Temp files
Redirect Temp files for Win 7
Oh and having just looked at your original question I would recommend the above steps with a complete reinstall of a later version (preferably the RTM) of windows 7, btw you do not need to use TweakUI in windows 7 as you can redirect the Desktop the same way you redirect all other folders within the user profile i.e. right click\Properties\Location
No disrespect to you hathehariken, but as usual, I made a mistake in choosing the "Accepted" answer. I meant it to be the comment by RobDating, that is wrongly listed as "assisted". Anyways, there is a lot of info to work with this time and I will make use of all of it wisely, I hope. The points were very difficult to distribute this time because there was no right or wrong answer.
Nobus, since I became a member, I have asked over 190 questions. And it is amazing how many times you have popped up to be of assistance, regardless of the topic. If I ever get to the point where I have to put up a sign for computer Repair, I would have to call it Nobus Repair Shop, in honor the many, many things, both great and small, that you have taught me. I as forgetful as I can be, some things just NEVER get forgotten.
D616
Glad we helped D616, and don't worry bout the points, it's been a pleasure to have helped.
Kind regards
RD
P.S. here's something that has got me through some frustrating moments with customers, I hope it will benefit you in the same way :0)
Our job demystified
And if they really don't get it..............
Flow charts demystified
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: hatheharikenPosted on 2009-08-30 at 13:21:48ID: 25219135
the best way to do this, in my opinion, is to get a second drive (internal or USB external, does not matter), you can even borrow one for a short time, if need be.
get all your important data to the other drive first.
after backing up everyting, boot into Win7 and delete an adjascent partition, and expand the Win7 partition to occupy that space.
http://www.howtogeek.com/h
hathehariken.