c/ d/ drive

my c drive is 42% free, my d drive is 99% free (empty) what happens? does my c drive get full, them flows over to d drive? or do i store certain things on d drive such as, say documents or photo's?

If i stored certain things on d drive,does that me my c drive runs quicker as i don't have as much stuff on?

clueless!

imagine you have 2 boxes to put stuff in, you keep putting stuff in box C but ignore the fact box D is empty. Box C will at some point become full, then you will have to take some stuff out and put it in box D

how ever bear in mind that as its on a % box D could be smaller than box C but its 98% empty

or put it this way

C could be 100Gb and if its 98% full it would have 2Gb left

D could be 1Gb but be 100% empty

so although its 100% empty, the physical size could be smaller than C has left space.

Alos it could be that your D drive is bigger than your C drive, you dont say how big they are

In either case clear out some of the junk you dont use / dont want. and put say all pictures on a memory stick or external hard drive, that way if C fails you still have the pictures, and ypou clear out the C drive

My 12yr old son has a 160gb hdd, being a whizz on graphics & game creating he soon filled it.
Windows would not start because it did not have enough space for its temp files.

What I have done for him is install his 2nd drive (500gb he bought his self)
and move loads of the files he was keeping over there, make him a "My downloads" folder on there & set everything to point to it when downloading.
Also I have moved his "my documents" onto D: and set that as the system documents folder.

The pc runs a lot better now, still didn't stop him filling his C: drive again though

As you still potentially have a lot of space left its not much to worry about yet.

libby lou lou said:

If i stored certain things on d drive,does that me my c drive runs quicker as i don't have as much stuff on?

clueless!

Click to expand...

Breezers comment answers the space side of things. Will your c drive run faster? Probably not, as although you have two "drives" C and D they are most probably 2 separate partitions "virtual drives" if you like on the same physical disk.

What some folk do is install only the operating system on the C drive, and load applications e.g. office, firefox etc onto an alternative physical drive, this theoretically should make a difference as the hard disk head shouldn't be flicking about (that's a technical term) so much.

If you do move a lot of files from the C drive to the D drive, then it might be wise to defrag the C drive afterwards. Start->All Programs->Accessories->System tools (in XP)

Some sound advice posted above.
First thing to do is find out the size of each drive/partition.
If you are using XP,
Go to Start -> My Computer -> right click on the C: drive icon -> Properties.
That will display the size, amount used and amount free on the C: HD. Make a note of actual figures not the %.
Repeat with D: drive.
Post back with your figures as, if D: is only a small recovery partition it is not worth transferring programs over. If it is as large as C: then some of your programs etc could be swopped over.
dave

Another advantage of having two hard drives is that you can store your backups from one on the other. This is particularly worthwhile with your photos, business documents and accounts.

All hard drives fail eventually and you will be very distressed when it hapens to you.

You can even use Windows Backup facility or other packages to automatically backup important folders daily or weekly.

Then you will be among those of us, who, when someone complains their drive has failed, smile sweetly and say "but surely you backed up your data?"

From Experience, I would say have a minimum of Four drives. :

(1) C Drive purely for Operating System Only
(2) D Drive for Program Files Only
(3) E Temp Drive
(4) F Data Only

If ever you have a system crash, your data is easier to recover.

C Drive should be kept lean as possible and well defragmented to ensure just the operating system files are retreived efficiently.
D Drive you will have to configure for temp storage. For folks who do not know, you will be amazed how much temp files are written to your Document and Settings area on the C Drive (eg, C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local Settings\Temp). Totally unwanted\needed files that can be removed. More importantly, the default area can be changed. Right Click My computer --> Click Advanced Tab --> Environment Variable (bottom Left in XP) and Change User and System Variable for TEMP and TMP to your designated areas, for example a Temp Drive - E
E Easily navigated to for deleting purposes
F Easy to recover and transfer.

If you don't have the luxury of having 4 separate drives, partition the primary into secondaries acheiving your required additional drives, or like me use a tool such as Partition Magic.

Another hopeless set of folders and files are windows update. When was the last time a windows update was backed out? Me? never! Well the backup files are kept in the root of your c:\Windows directory. You will need to be able to see hidden files or folders but if you see lots of folders like '$NtUninstallKB946648$' then delete them if they are very old because they consume large amounts of diskspace. If you're not sure, then atleast move them from your C Drive.

For Advanced users, I would recommend PowerToys from Microsoft. A good tool allowing a user to make config changes to folder destinations.

Hope the above helps.

Windows likes to put things on the C drive (in My Programs and My Documents particularly). How do you stop it doing that?

JohnD said:

Windows likes to put things on the C drive (in My Programs and My Documents particularly). How do you stop it doing that?

Click to expand...

PowerTOYS from Microsoft...

Is it free?

I'm on XP

JohnD said:

Is it free?

I'm on XP

Click to expand...

Not for novice... but yep Its free.

Specifically MS Powertoys "TweakUI" and it can allow you to change the path that Windows sees as where your documents and program files are for all installations.

So you install Windows on your small C: drive, then install TweakUI (it will be in control panel then), change your settings & then install the applications.

Using the My Computer\Special Folders settings.

It has all sorts of useful settings in it but be careful & do not click on "Apply" unless your absolutely sure of what you have done.

it is available here.

JohnD said:

Windows likes to put things on the C drive (in My Programs and My Documents particularly). How do you stop it doing that?

Click to expand...

Programs usually offer a custom setting or ask you to specify an install location. This is where you decide where to install it.

To change your My Documents location, Click START, right click on My Documents and click Properties. Click the move button and select your new location.