What's new

Hard drive cleaning...C drive

OK guys I really hate to ask this since most of you will laugh at me. I have a regular Gateway laptop and there is a popup that continues to tell me that my C drive is full and ask to clean up which I do....Its 11 GB and my D drive is 80GB. I know not big but serves my purpose. Problem is that I ONLY have the essential on my C drive and no games, massive music files, etc. I have all that on my D drive. I am I just SOL or....can I transfer some over to D....get another hard drive? or any other suggestions? I am VERY computer illiterate and dont know why I cant download anything w/o maxing my C drive out. Any suggestions would be appreciated:)
 
See if you can hunt down "disk cleanup" in the control panel (I assume you're running windows). You probably have a bunch of temporary files that can be dumped. Next, I'd recommend running the disk defragmentation tool (also somewhere in the control panel). Good luck!
 
I have not had the same problem you have had, however, I had a c drive with a lot of junk on the register and elsewhere that typical spyware cleanup and virus programs could not eliminate. I discovered ccleaner.com that has a free windows and registry cleaner that eliminates spyware and unneeded files without fear. You can back up your prior status if you wish. I also switched to AVG virus protection (also free) and got away from Norton. I think you will find your problem solved with ccleaner and a disc defrag.
 
You might also want to verify that you have two physical drives C and D and not simply a single physical drive that has been partitioned into two logical drives. If the latter is the case, you can use a partition management utility to resize the partitions or even just make one big C drive. I have used the free EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition to do something similar (in my case, I wasn't worried about how destructive the process was to my D drive so I don't know and doubt if it can resize while preserving everything; it did preserve my OS on C though). Whatever you do, investing in an inexpensive external USB drive and backing up EVERYTHING on the laptop would probably be a worthy precaution and first step.
 
Sick minds think alike? :001_smile
You might also want to verify that you have two physical drives C and D and not simply a single physical drive that has been partitioned into two logical drives. If the latter is the case, you can use a partition management utility to resize the partitions or even just make one big C drive. I have used the free EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition to do something similar (in my case, I wasn't worried about how destructive the process was to my D drive so I don't know and doubt if it can resize while preserving everything; it did preserve my OS on C though). Whatever you do, investing in an inexpensive external USB drive and backing up EVERYTHING on the laptop would probably be a worthy precaution and first step.
 
I'll second ccleaner...awesome utility
I also second checking actual physical drives
*actually, I re-read that you are talking about a laptop, it's not very common for basic laptops to have multiple harddrives, so my initial thought is to second the idea of re-partitioning the harddrive; not as difficult as it sounds, but highly suggest backing up your data
also would suggest jkdefrag for degramenting the harddrive
 
Try ccleaner, the download is small and it does a much better job of getting rid of junk files than disk cleanup. Actually, run disk cleanup first, then download ccleaner.
disk cleanup:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312
ccleaner:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Is it 2 physical drives or 2 partitions? Because you might be able to use something like Partition Magic to resize the 2 partitions.


This one I dont know about. I am assuming 2 physical drives?
 
being a laptop, it's probably 1 HD, 2 partitions; a couple of things you can try - at start up, go into the CMOS/BIOS settings, usually a prompt that comes up saying something like "Press DEL to enter setup", or F2, F10, etc., then search around (CAREFULLY!) for disk drives, it should show you the physical devices present in your machine
OR
- in Windows, right click My Computer, click Manage; search down the left side of the box for Disk Management; this will show you are the disk drives windows sees - hard drives, cd/dvd drives, flash drives... - you should be able to tell here whether you have two hard drives or one partitioned drive, though it is sometimes difficult to tell, which is why I listed the other method first, though this one is easier to do
 
being a laptop, it's probably 1 HD, 2 partitions; a couple of things you can try - at start up, go into the CMOS/BIOS settings, usually a prompt that comes up saying something like "Press DEL to enter setup", or F2, F10, etc., then search around (CAREFULLY!) for disk drives, it should show you the physical devices present in your machine
OR
- in Windows, right click My Computer, click Manage; search down the left side of the box for Disk Management; this will show you are the disk drives windows sees - hard drives, cd/dvd drives, flash drives... - you should be able to tell here whether you have two hard drives or one partitioned drive, though it is sometimes difficult to tell, which is why I listed the other method first, though this one is easier to do


C: boot,page file, crash dump, primary partition cap 10.45 GB
d: system, active, primary partition cap 138 GB

can i split them up? or options?
i did do the CC cleanup btw but not defrag yet...know it takes a while
 
C: boot,page file, crash dump, primary partition cap 10.45 GB
d: system, active, primary partition cap 138 GB

can i split them up? or options?
i did do the CC cleanup btw but not defrag yet...know it takes a while

It looks like your computer works in the D: partition by default. Try this:

Click on Start, then click on Run.
Key in cmd and then press Enter.

Which partition is showing, C: or D: ?
 
C: boot,page file, crash dump, primary partition cap 10.45 GB
d: system, active, primary partition cap 138 GB

can i split them up? or options?
i did do the CC cleanup btw but not defrag yet...know it takes a while

the jkdefrag app does a better job, quicker than the built-in windows defrag...
 
But again, I stress back everything up before you begin to fool around with this stuff. I'm still betting on a single drive, two partitions (11 gb is so small). The utility I mentioned before will give you a picture of the actual situation re: drives and partitions.
 
Move your "My Documents" and "My Pictures" etc. over to your D: drive.

XP I assume, right? If so, click on "Start", then right-click "My Documents" and choose "Properties" The first tab is labeled "Target" and there should be a "Move" button that allows you to transfer that entire folder over to your D: drive. Rinse and repeat with the "My Pictures" and "My Music" folders.

Also, if you have any Download programs (Bittorrent, Peer 2 Peer file sharing, etc.) poke around in their settings and see if you can specify to start storing stuff on the D: drive. 99% of the time all the applications you install default to saving to the Windows partition, which in your case is the C:.

Lastly, looks like your pagefile is configured on your C: partition. You can move it to your D: partition to free up a bit more space. Again, click on "Start" then right-click "My Computer" and choose "Properties." Under the "Advanced" tab, click on the first "Settings" button -- the one under the heading labeled "Performance." Go to the "Advanced" tab, then the last button will be labeled "Change" (it's under the "Virtual Memory" heading.)

Click on "C", click on the radio button labeled "No Paging File" and then click the "Set" button.

Click on "D", click on the radio button labeled "System Managed Size" and then click the "Set" button.

Click on "OK" all the way out of those windows, and Windows will tell you it wants to reboot to make the changes. Reboot, and you should get enough space freed up to have Windows stop bugging you.

Finally, if you just want to remove that balloon tip message from popping up, and don't really want to mess with moving files and your pagefile, try this:

http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/2008/06/disabling-low-disk-space-warning-in.html
 
OK I tried resizes/moving/shifting partitions- it wouldnt let me b/c of Vista? It sure looked like it was going to work! Baloosh, moved my documents and pics over to D(music was already there) and I believe that will fix my problems b/c every time I filled up either was when I got the warning. I also did the advanced setting thing as well. So I believe that should fix the issue. My system already defrags on a set schedule. I did use the Ccleaner and it cleared quite a bit stuff as well. Thanks guys for all the help! I have no idea how I would have figured all this out on my own!
 
Top Bottom