Hardrive help

Ive just filled up my c: drive on my laptop and was wondering if there was any reason not to use the d which is completely empty.Is it just used for recovery because it seems like a waste of half of a hardrive.

I'm not a Windows expert, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

But, I'm sure you can move your DATA files to other drive with little or no difficulty, such as Word documents, MP3 music, etc.

Applications on Windows are bit harder. If moving data isn't enough to ease your space problems, you may need to remove programs from your main drive and reinstall on the second disk (assuming you do have the original disks). You are moving to into DLL hell and basic Windows problems, but it looks like you might not have a choice if you do that.

With any luck it'll turn out fine, but Windows is a finicky unpredictable beast IMO.

reply to post by Azador


By all means, move your documents, media, whatever you can to the other drive. To keep your drive healthy, it is recommended you leave about 20-25% free space. This is for overhead, moving space for defragmentation, etc.

I recommend moving personal data like your documents and anything else important you want to keep into your D: drive. That way should you need to format C:, you wouldn't lose those important stuff because it's sitting in D: drive.

That's what I do, by the way. I leave C: drive just for Windows and program installations (the installers are on the other drive(s)).

Thanks thats a big help from both of ya.I only want to move music and pics.

Music and pics should be no problem.

Don't forget to run the Disk Defragmenter on drive C: after you've moved your files. It should improve performance on C: slightly.

Start Menu --> Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> Disk Defragmenter

What's the capacity on D:? I find it odd that a recovery partition would use half of the disk capacity. Right click on it and go to properties (or hover your cursor over it to see the little yellow pop up box) and find out the capacity of the D: drive.

Edit: Also, it would probably be a good idea to pick up an external drive. They're relatively cheap, and good for backup. More than likely both your C: and D: drives are just separate partitions on one physical drive. If that drive dies you'll still lose all of your data. All that moving the data to the D: drive would accomplish would be to prevent loss in the event of a Windows issue.



[edit on 16-9-2007 by Rasobasi420]

Just my 2 cents,

But if you went and bought a remote HDD, they are really inexpensive now, you will have no problems at all..

I currently have 4, 3 with my home desktop and one for my laptop...

They work wonderful, are really portable now and very affordable...

Semper

hah...

I just edited while Semper was posting his piece.

Great minds Raso...

Great minds always think alike... LOL

Semper

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
What's the capacity on D:? I find it odd that a recovery partition would use half of the disk capacity.

Perhaps the computer is a Dell? I noticed they tend to do that as "stock standard" with laptops.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
All that moving the data to the D: drive would accomplish would be to prevent loss in the event of a Windows issue.

The whole point. If you've used Windows long enough, you know it HAS issues almost all the time.

Its an acer my c=25.7gb total and my d=26.2gb.I only noticed it was full to the brim when i went to do a defrag.Another thing was its supposed to have a 80gig hdd got ripped there.Lookn at gettn an external any good/bad brands to look out for?

I tend to trust Seagate over other models. My old 1GB Seagate which is more than a decade old still works, so that's kind of proof enough for me that it's a good brand. Other people might disagree.

The brand I trust the least is Maxtor, because not a single Maxtor drive I owned has survived more than 3 years.

Western Digital is kind of like in the middle. Samsung seems pretty alright too.

Cool i can get seagate stuff from work.Beachcomba have you ever been to beachcomber is.?

Originally posted by Azador
Beachcomba have you ever been to beachcomber is.?

No. Where is that?

I have noticed many laptops having 2 partions for 1 harddrive.

Now this can be done for 2 reasons:
1) Some manufacturers put the recovery information on the second partion.
2) Others put it there with the idea of putting all data (music/video/pictures...) on the second partion, with the first reserved for the operating system and or operating system and programs.


"SOME" laptops give you the ability to completly remove the second partion and have just one big partions.

I must disagree with a previous poster, you should keep all harddrives and or partions @ 50% full or less.
You see, after 50%, it will start slowing down your harddrive and or partition.

I hope this helps you, for more details, feel free to u2u me with your laptop brand and model number and I will give you more specific details relitive your exact unit.

I agree with keeping individual partitions at 50% or less, I just meant that having a recovery partition take up 50% of your physical disk space is odd. Most recovery partitions are only a few gigs max.

I'm betting that Acer partitioned the drive to do just what you're asking for Azador. I would go ahead and move all of my music to the secondary partition. Just remember that if you're using iTunes not to let iTunes copy the music to your My Music folder, or you'll be back in the sme boat, but with less space on your secondary drive.

Are you sure about the 50% free space? In this day and era of large HDDs, 50% is a significant amount to be left for overhead.

Primary partitions that hold the OS? Sure. If my servers' C drive go above 70% I get alerts.

Storage partitions, no.

Actually this is true of all hard drives and or partitions.

That said, it is most important on the hard drive/partition that holds your operating system.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If, for example, you have 2 partitions-OS in one and data/programs on the other.
If you let the second portion become very full, the OS will be slow in opening/using that application(s) due to it being slow to get to that program.

Acers come with 3 partitions as atandard.

Partition 1 is a hidden recovery partition that works with the D2D recovery service that should be running on your PC.

If you press ALT+F10 it should display.

Partition 2 is your OS and Partition 3 is for data, as already stated.

As for external HDs, my preference is WD, never had one fail on me, can't say the same for Maxtor, Seagate and Samsung.

I'd recommend backing up your OS to an external HD. I use Acronis True Image, it works well, saved me from disaster a couple of times.