Newbie trying to get a machine to recognize new drive space

I'm a newbie here so have mercy!

I was asked by a friend to look at their Dell computer which is running on a Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit platform. The problem was it had a 128GB drive which was all but full (a few KB left). It seemed the Windows folder was responsible for taking up all that space which I knew was abnormal since it occupies less than 40GB in my own computer.

I took it to a nearby Staples computer center since I didnt feel that comfortable doing anything myself and they ran their DoctorPC program which cleaned it up but the problem remained and they were completely stumped. I didnt want to do a clean install because it would wipe out the programs on the machine and I wasnt sure if my friend even had them anymore. Taking it home, I bought a new 500GB drive and cloned the old drive to it using a StarTech cloner. When I started it up, the machine still showed a 128GB hard drive nearly full. Updates wouldnt load and the machine was barely operational because anything tended to exceed the memory limits.

At that point I started consolidating &deleting files that were duplicated under several old users since my friend is the only user (the machine had a previous owner). That helped some, so I went into the Windows folder and found that the Windows Temp folder was huge. Taking a chance, I deleted the contents (leaving the folder intact).

That has appeared to fix the original problem and cleared up more than half the 128GB hard drive space. The machine appears to be running fine.

Now what I need help with is to get the computer to recognize the full 500GB of the new drive (still shows 128GB in system manager). It would be great if I could make all of this space available to my friend.

Did I error in deleting the Temp files?

Thanks.

Edited by Fortran7, 20 February 2018 - 10:18 PM.

Click on the orb then right click on computer click on manage, when the panel opens on the left click on manage.  Take a screen shot and post it here, lets see what it is showing.

 

Don't worry about the temps!

Edited by OldPhil, 20 February 2018 - 10:33 PM.

OldPhil Wrote : when the panel opens on the left click on manage.......

Click  " Disk Management " then take a screen shot and Post.

 

If you cloned the 128 G { im Assuming its a SSD } to the 500G the you cloned the Partition and didnt Extend it to use the Full 500G Drive Space.

This can be done later anyway , lets see the Screen Shot first:

The 128GB drive was a HD not a SSD. Not sure what you're referring to as the partition since the original drive wasn't partitioned as far as I know (unless I created one in the cloning process). Will visit my friend today and get a screen shot to post.

When Windows is installed...a partition is created.

 

Windows cannot be successfully installed on anything other than a formatted partition.

 

The designation C: is a partition.

 

Louis

That was just the information I needed Doppleganger. I was looking for that page when I worked over the Windows folder, but it had been quite a spell since I last accessed the manager page and I couldn't remember how to bring it up. Once I got there, I right clicked on the 128GB portion and the expand allocation box came up, and it was a simple matter to reallocate the whole drive (what was actually available) to the user. All is happy now. As I understand it, the cloned portion was placed on the new drive as a kind of partition along with an unallocated "partition". This just made it all one partition.
Thanks for the help. My friend is quite happy with the results.

I tried uploading a screen shot but it won't upload for some reason (probably my old machine) but you know what I'm talking about so an upload probably isn't needed anyway.

Edited by Fortran7, 21 February 2018 - 03:37 PM.

Glad to see another happy camper!