BleepingComputer.com: Repartition hardrive Switch to C drive

i do disk cleanup and still only get about 300MB free space.. I don't even have enough space to even defrag my computer. I tried unintalling some programs, but the applications on there are ones i need and use. Other games that actually give a choice to run on other drive usually crash. My family gave me this laptop. It looks like they partitioned it wrong. Everything i download automatically goes the the D drive and space is very limited on this drive- could be why i lag so much. (main drive). I need help repartitioning back to the C drive which has almost 100 GB space. So D drive is my cd rom drive? I have a windows CD installation too, but i don't know if i'll be able to partition if possible. I have no clue how to do it and i was told it could mess up your computer. I have a separate computer with internet so i can given instructions step by step. How long will this take? Must be why my computer freezes up too much and acts funny. I have avast and nothin bad is on my computer. doesn't have enough space to run? SOmetimes when i play a game it crashes.

This post has been edited by Doomsis: 26 February 2011 - 01:07 AM

On the system that has the space problem...Start/Run...type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.

Take a screenshot and post it in your next reply.

How to take and share a screen shot in Windows - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-take-and-share-a-screen-shot-in-windows/

Louis

My take, from the graphic posted...

This laptop was partitioned by the manufacturer (Dell) in typical manner.

The first partition (47MB FAT) appearing...is some sort of admin partition.

The second partition (10GB NTFS)...probably has restore/recovery files or is designed to be used for such or backups. Your Dell documentation should indicate what it is, what it is for.

The third partition (2GB FAT) is discussed briefly at http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.shtml .

"Some Dell notebook computers include a special Dell MediaDirect feature. MediaDirect enables you to watch DVD movies, slideshows, or listen to music without having to boot the complete XP operating system. MediaDirect is installed in a special partition on the hard disk, but is hidden so you cannot see it when XP is booted normally. When the computer is off, pressing the MediaDirect button will boot the MediaDirect partition instead of XP."

The fourth partition (100GB NTFS) reflects the O/S partition and is the largest. It does not appear to be full, which makes me question the accuracy of your initial statements. 35% free space on an approximate 100GB partition...is plenty of room for Windows.

So...disk space does not appear to be your problem. What made you think that it was?

If you have received error messages...please post them exactly as they appeared onscreen.

I would suggest running the chkdsk /r command from within XP.

Start/Run...type chkdsk /r and hit Enter. Type Y in new screen and hit Enter. Reboot the system, the chkdsk /r will run to completion, then boot into XP.

Louis

Sounds like the OP has their browser set to download to D: drive as default which is causing it to fill up fast. Doomsis which internet browser do you use?

**One thing is that the boot files are on D: and C: is the system files. I don't know how that would happen if this were an original OEM install. D: should be only for recovery files in most cases.

How do i set it up to go to C drive? I know that my my documents sits in my D drive. I try to install microsoft and it goes to the D drive. I try to install applications and it goes to D drive- the installations that don't give you a choice to install to another drive. Even if i do setup firefox downloads to D drive, the installation (that doesn't allow you to manually choose a drive to install) goes to the D drive. That's a problem for me. I don't have space in my D drive, so what i suppose to do. I currently own a game that does not give you a choice where to install it. So if this were to happen - how to i direct it to go to C drive? whenever i restart my computer there this black screen that shows 2 xp professionals. Is there two of them?

This post has been edited by Doomsis: 28 February 2011 - 03:21 PM

There is no logical reason that...anything...should be downloaded to your D: drive...unless you changed some setting and made it possible. The default location for Downloads in Windows...is C:.

D: is normally the default drive letter assigned to an optical drive...no program would normally ever download or refer to D:, unless it was expected to be installed from CD/DVD.

I would expect D: to be the default location of any game that was played from the optical drive.

Nothing...nothing related to Windows...should automatically install/download to any drive listed as D:. If it does, then I'd have to guess that you have fiddled with the download settings or registry values.

<<I currently own a game that does not give you a choice where to install it.>>

No game can be expected to install on an optical drive. If the optical drive is the mechanism for running the game, there may be references to D: in the installation/operation instructions. No one...can save files to an optical drive...they can only save files to media used by the drive and that requires the special process of burning.

<<whenever i restart my computer there this black screen that shows 2 xp professionals. Is there two of them?>>

We don't know, don't you?

You didn't mention two installs...yet you complain about inability to install Windows on D:...it's hard for us to know what you have been doing, unless you tell us.

If you get two boot options at login...I'd have to say that you or someone has made an effort to either do a repair install or another install of Windows.

You might read/follow these instructions: Removing the invalid entries from Boot.ini - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/bootopt.htm .

Louis

Well lets see here, if you select the second XP Pro in the list does that boot up to a desktop?

yes. i think i remember now. I had a virus from a very bad antivirus program. it failed to reboot my computer so the black screen has been like that every since. Every time i tried to do repair fix it failed so i never bothered to deal with it. Since the virus problems were gone from the bad antivirus program, i never bothered to do the repair install. Also i thought that if my D drive was the main, i thought it made the computer slower. Because i no nothing about computers, i believed because i thought the D was my main drive, i thought someone partitioned it wrong. So all the time i would always never defrag the C drive. Could be a reason why i always tried to only defrag the D drive. SOrry if i got my info mixed up my bad.

So if my computer was setup to install a game to my D drive because the settings was messed with, what can i do to check and fix it back the way it needs to be. Maybe the game could install to the C drive. reinstalling it now. Maybe your right. Because it always say my hardrive has disk drive space. If it says that (referring to my Drive) does it make the computer slower? or it doesn't matter?

Go to Start>Run type in cmd and hit OK.
In the black window that opens what does the prompt look like?

C:\documents and Settings\Username>
or
D:\documents and Settings\Username>

I want to know if the Windows you are running is on C: or D:

You can type exit to close the black window.

This post has been edited by sach2: 03 March 2011 - 08:57 PM

it's on both the c and d drive. I can access one on the D drive, but when i try to access the document and settings on the C drive it says 'access denied'- this folder is empty anyways. SO i guessing it's on the D drive. I was right. I reinstalled the game and commanded to to install to the C drive and it installed to the D drive. I was right! why is it doing that T_T wait... nvm it placed all files not in a folder in C drive nvm ok everythings ok. srry for being stupid ~_~

This post has been edited by Doomsis: 03 March 2011 - 09:29 PM

I'm not sure everything is OK.

First when you are denied access to a folder it will show as empty until you take ownership of the folder then the true size becomes apparent. So C:\Documents and Settings is probably not empty.

I think what is happening here is you have two installations of XP. One on the C: drive and one on the D: drive. The D: drive is a newer installation and now is the default one to sign into. It is only 10gb large so you are running out of space.

The question is why you are not using the installation on the C: drive? Does it work? When you get the choice of two XP PRO installations to sign into on the black screen what happens if you use the arrow key to select the second one and hit enter--does it boot up?

When you have multiple partitons on a hard drive...the position of the C: partition becomes relative.

Example: I have 2 dual-boot system whereby I installed both XP and Win 7. When I boot into Win 7, it is recognized as the C: partition, while the other O/S is recognized as D:. When I boot into XP, it is recognized as the C: partition, while the Win 7 partition appears as D:.

Whichever Windows partition, I boot into...becomes the C: partition because it reflects/contains the O/S I am currently in.

I don't have any of these OEM (Dell, HP, etc.), but I suspect that the same thing occurs.

Windows sees the system partition as C:, while Disk Management is solely concerned with the physical configuration of the hard drive.

If My Computer...reflects your XP install as being D:...then I think that something is wrong. I don't think that Dell systems come with hard drives routinely set up as yours is reflected, I suspect that some user has changed things or attempted something that hasn't been discussed thus far.

Louis

This post has been edited by hamluis: 04 March 2011 - 07:03 AM

So would it matter if it was on the D drive? So whoever was tryin to fix it did somethin wrong =o. I'm not the original owner. it was given to me in 2008 they gave it to me cuz my laptop was falling apart.

This post has been edited by Doomsis: 06 March 2011 - 12:10 AM