# D:/ drive problems



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

I just got a new computer, it's got 350 gigs.  50 of those gigs are on the OS_install drive, the C:/ drive, and that drive is almost full.

I'm trying to install some games, but they won't install because apparently those files are associated with the C:/ drive, I've moved the program files for Steam to the D:/ drive, but that didn't help, and I've been forced to reinstall Steam and come full circle to where the problem began.

So, what's going on? D:


----------



## Aurali (Sep 3, 2009)

Reinstall steam, but put the install directory into the D drive when it asks for it.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

Yup, that pretty much fixed it. :x  Wow, I feel super smart now...

But there's still the issue of my C:/ drive being almost full, is there a way to switch it over to the D:/ drive?


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Yup, that pretty much fixed it. :x  Wow, I feel super smart now...
> 
> But there's still the issue of my C:/ drive being almost full, is there a way to switch it over to the D:/ drive?



For some applications, you can just reinstall them to the D: drive (deleting their old copy on the C.  If you feel up to doing a little registry hacking, you can often edit entries within the Windows registry to re-point applications to whatever drive you want, and then manually move the files.  I would not recommend trying that though unless you're comfortable with such things.

A third fix would be to re-image the C: drive onto a larger one.  You can use tools like G-parted LiveCD or Parted Magic to clone the C: drive to a larger drive, then swap them.  Again, this one requires a bit more tech-savviness.


----------



## Aurali (Sep 3, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> A third fix would be to re-image the C: drive onto a larger one.  You can use tools like G-parted LiveCD or Parted Magic to clone the C: drive to a larger drive, then swap them.  Again, this one requires a bit more tech-savviness.



Or if you are on Vista it might be better off to use the internal one (never had good luck using third party with vista), saving that this might take a bit of files moving around.


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

Eli said:


> Or if you are on Vista it might be better off to use the internal one (never had good luck using third party with vista), saving that this might take a bit of files moving around.



Oh, didn't know Vista had that built in (though I wouldn't trust Microsoft disk editing tools if my life depended on it).  We don't have/use/touch-with-10-foot-pole Vista anywhere at work or home, so have little exposure to it.


----------



## Aurali (Sep 3, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Oh, didn't know Vista had that built in (though I wouldn't trust Microsoft disk editing tools if my life depended on it).  We don't have/use/touch-with-10-foot-pole Vista anywhere at work or home, so have little exposure to it.



heh. I actually loved vista. though it's a thing in the past for me. (Win 7 user now <3) The tool is pretty decent for resizing. Though microsoft did some things... and now most ntfs editors break in vista partitions.


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

Eli said:


> heh. I actually loved vista. though it's a thing in the past for me. (Win 7 user now <3) The tool is pretty decent for resizing. Though microsoft did some things... and now most ntfs editors break in vista partitions.



Some people like Chihuahuas too - even though they're a pretty lame excuse for a dog.   Microsoft may have changed some details about NTFS again, and if so, they likely won't be disclosing them anytime soon.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

Hm, would either of you guys mind adding me to messenger and helping me out here?  I'm afraid to do this myself. D:


----------



## SnowFox (Sep 3, 2009)

I don't see how anyone who's into the technical side of computers could actually like vista.
I feel I could tweak pretty much anything in XP that's tweakable and customize things the way I like them. After attempting to use Vista I felt like I'd never used windows before, everything is moved or dumbed down to an annoying level so I feel like I have very little control over anything.

If I'm going to have to learn a new OS after XP dies, it certainly won't be windows.

-----

On topic: You say the computer is new yet the C drive is full? That doesn't sound right.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> On topic: You say the computer is new yet the C drive is full? That doesn't sound right.



Yeah, just about all 50 Gigs of the C:/ drive are filled, I've only got a few hundred MBs left on it.  While my D:/ drive is sitting empty with almost 300 gigs. >:/


----------



## SnowFox (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Yeah, just about all 50 Gigs of the C:/ drive are filled, I've only got a few hundred MBs left on it.  While my D:/ drive is sitting empty with almost 300 gigs. >:/



Have you installed lots of stuff?
What OS is it?
Which folders are taking up the most space?


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> Have you installed lots of stuff?
> What OS is it?
> Which folders are taking up the most space?



I've installed Photoshop and Mircrosoft Office.  And looking at the drive, the Users and Windows folders take up most of the space.  (And it's Vista)

I moved all of my Steam files into the D:/ drive by reinstalling it.  Though now it'd really help to get the Users stuff on there as well so my C:/ drive can have some space.

But aside from Photoshop and Office I've not installed anything else.  I've actually uninstalled some trial-ware like winRAR and winZIP.


----------



## ElizabethAlexandraMary (Sep 3, 2009)

There's the C: drive, and the D: drive.
Notice something?

C: is happy. D: is sad.


----------



## SnowFox (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> it's Vista



ew.

It's probably your personal documents taking up most of the space then. I edited the registry on mine to have all my personal files/emails/documents/etc on a separate partition to windows. I think you can do this using tweakui, but I don't know if it works for vista. I found this after a quick search, I can't test it out but I assume it would do the same thing.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

Alright, I've found the disk management part of the control panel.   And it looks like I can shrink and expand the disk drives.  But for some reason, I can only shrink either of them, and I can't format the OS_Install drive like I can the other D:/ drive.

If I were to shrink the D:/ drive, would that in turn allocate disk space onto the C:/ drive, giving my OS_Install more space?


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

Vista has a HUGE footprint as an OS.  If the 300 g drive is empty, or can be emptied, I would try doing the drive cloning thing I mentioned earlier.  The perk of that is that it doesn't do anything to the original drive, so if the imaged drive doesn't boot or work, then you haven't damaged or changed the one that does.  

I would help via messenger, but I don't do IM. :/  This may help though - it's another utility specifically designed to clone entire drives - CloneZilla LiveCD.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Vista has a HUGE footprint as an OS.  If the 300 g drive is empty, or can be emptied, I would try doing the drive cloning thing I mentioned earlier.  The perk of that is that it doesn't do anything to the original drive, so if the imaged drive doesn't boot or work, then you haven't damaged or changed the one that does.
> 
> I would help via messenger, but I don't do IM. :/  This may help though - it's another utility specifically designed to clone entire drives - CloneZilla LiveCD.



So how does this stuff work?  From what I can gather it copies the drive and stores it on some network?  Can I use that to put expand my C:/ drive?


----------



## Aurali (Sep 3, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> ew.
> 
> It's probably your personal documents taking up most of the space then. I edited the registry on mine to have all my personal files/emails/documents/etc on a separate partition to windows. I think you can do this using



>.> in vista, you just right click the personal section you wanna change and hit properties and change it from there.


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> So how does this stuff work?  From what I can gather it copies the drive and stores it on some network?  Can I use that to put expand my C:/ drive?



You can use it (or the G-Parted, or Parted Magic) to make a copy of your existing C: drive onto another drive.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> You can use it (or the G-Parted, or Parted Magic) to make a copy of your existing C: drive onto another drive.



Okay, I got that G-Parted stuff on a USB and booted it.  It says it's ready to boot, where do I go from here? >.>


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

Okay, I found a simpler less absolute fix.  I just went to the stuff under my my user folder, and moved each folder to the D:/ drive, seems to work...


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Alright, I've found the disk management part of the control panel.   And it looks like I can shrink and expand the disk drives.  But for some reason, I can only shrink either of them, and I can't format the OS_Install drive like I can the other D:/ drive.


Y'know, I could tell you a great way to prepare C: for formatting, but the infraction for last time I gave tech advice still hasn't expired.


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Okay, I found a simpler less absolute fix.  I just went to the stuff under my my user folder, and moved each folder to the D:/ drive, seems to work...



Hmm... well be careful there - Windows assumes (just as most OS's would) that the user folder exists within a predefined place.  It is possible to change that with some tweak software, but if you don't, Windows might look for data and simply not find it because it's no longer where it thinks it is.

Now... if the "data" that you move is limited to stuff like your music directory, video directory and so on, then that's fine.  I keep pictures, music and videos in separate directories on my Windows box, so they are not associated with my user profile.  For me, that's largely because I was using Windows long before it _had_ user profiles, so it's old habit.  But that method does work fine and make it easier to port big directories around.

Software can also be installed to ANY place you want.  When you install a program, I suggest always clicking on the "advanced" or "custom" option, if there is one, because it will always allow you to choose where you're installing it too.  A common thing I see folks with a "D:" drive do is make a "Program Files" directory on their D drive, just like their C drive has.  Then when you install stuff, you just change the drive letter from C to D, and proceed as normal.  You can also re-install existing software to D.  

Eventually though, you will want to figure out how to clone your drive to a larger one - sounds like your main drive is around 60g, and that's WAY too small for a modern PC running a resource pig like Vista.  I would say the bare minimum you want as the main drive would be 160g nowadays.  The other caveat of such a small drive is that it's likely older, thus, slower than a new one.  Slow drives can really make a system seem sluggish.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

Well, by moving my User/James files into the D:/ drive partition, I've freed up almost 10 Gigs of my C:/ drive. 

http://www.vista4beginners.com/Move-user-files-folders-to-another-partition

But now I realize it was completely useless as the whole reason I wanted to make my C:/ drive larger was so I could easily save pictures and downloads in the C:/ drive like a normal person is supposed to.

It's one of those FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- rage moments of "holy shit there went my evening to nothing"


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 3, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Hmm... well be careful there - Windows assumes (just as most OS's would) that the user folder exists within a predefined place.  It is possible to change that with some tweak software, but if you don't, Windows might look for data and simply not find it because it's no longer where it thinks it is.
> 
> Now... if the "data" that you move is limited to stuff like your music directory, video directory and so on, then that's fine.  I keep pictures, music and videos in separate directories on my Windows box, so they are not associated with my user profile.  For me, that's largely because I was using Windows long before it _had_ user profiles, so it's old habit.  But that method does work fine and make it easier to port big directories around.
> 
> ...



When I got this PC I kind of assumed the massive storage drive was for the OS_Install crap and that the little 50 gig one was for backup files and what not, apparently someone got it backwards. D:<


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> When I got this PC I kind of assumed the massive storage drive was for the OS_Install crap and that the little 50 gig one was for backup files and what not, apparently someone got it backwards. D:<



Well, sometimes PC's start with a small drive and people add a bigger, newer one later on.  Also, sometimes folks don't know how to change the jumpers to reorder the drives so that the larger one is the master.  My ex was running a system with a 40g primary (old thing) and a 200M secondary for over a year.  I finally found a 160g and imaged her 40g to it, then swapped them.  That was at least a bit better.  More recently, she got a new system with a 500g drive, so I copied the 160 to a partition on the new drive, and the 200 to another partition, and just mounted the partitions as C: and D:.  Used G-Parted LiveCD both times.


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Sep 3, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Well, by moving my User/James files into the D:/ drive partition, I've freed up almost 10 Gigs of my C:/ drive.
> 
> http://www.vista4beginners.com/Move-user-files-folders-to-another-partition
> 
> ...



Okay, here's what you do.

1) Download the file here and unzip the program, then cut and paste it to C:\Windows\System32.
2) Start a command prompt (might need to right-click and select "Run as Adminstrator") and cd into C:\Users
3) Type "junction James D:\James" (or whatever your user folder on the D: drive now is called)
4) Go back to downloading porn.


----------



## JamestheDoc (Sep 5, 2009)

Okay, I found an easier way to fix this.  But it's only good if you' just gotten the computer like me, and don't have a lot of stuff on the D:/ drive.

Just go to your control panel, system management, and at the bottom is where you can change or edit disk partitions.

All I did was delete the D:/ partition, this allowed me to extend the C:/ with that unallocated space, then create a new D:/ using the space that was left, so now my OS_install has 100G of room, and I've got right at 200G for data storage.

C:


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Sep 5, 2009)

JamestheDoc said:


> Okay, I found an easier way to fix this.  But it's only good if you' just gotten the computer like me, and don't have a lot of stuff on the D:/ drive.
> 
> Just go to your control panel, system management, and at the bottom is where you can change or edit disk partitions.
> 
> ...



Okay, here's a question--why don't you just get rid of D: entirely, since you clearly don't use it to begin with?

Typical kludge, making things harder than they need to be :V


----------

