Computer Harddrive Help

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Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Hey all. I am in a bit of trouble at the moment.

I am only able to use half of my laptop's 320GB of hardrive, since half of it is on C Drive, and the other half is on D Drive.

Can anyone help me here? Should I copy everything from my C drive into my D drive, then wipe the C drive and keep it open? Or is there a way that I can make installations go to my D drive instead of my C drive?

I'm running out of room, and not being able to use half of my harddrive is frustrating.

I am running a Samsung R522 with 320GB Hard drive, 4GB RAM.
 

Sightless Wisdom

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Jul 24, 2009
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Ermm... so it has a partition that divides it in half. Unless there is a specific problem you should be able to put whatever files you want on D.

EDIT: re-read, understood better. It might be a good idea to back up the files externally, get a linux disc or download the partitioner and run it to make one large partition rather than two small ones.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Sightless Wisdom said:
Ermm... so it has a partition that divides it in half. Unless there is a specific problem you should be able to put whatever files you want on D.
But everything automatically is set to install to C. Whenever I try to install something else, it won't acknowledge D as an option.

EDIT
So I should look for an external harddrive then? Back up everything onto it and then try to work things out?
 

Sightless Wisdom

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Jul 24, 2009
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Soviet Heavy said:
Sightless Wisdom said:
Ermm... so it has a partition that divides it in half. Unless there is a specific problem you should be able to put whatever files you want on D.
But everything automatically is set to install to C. Whenever I try to install something else, it won't acknowledge D as an option.

EDIT
So I should look for an external harddrive then? Back up everything onto it and then try to work things out?
First, a couple questions: What takes up most of the space on C: ? If it's media(pictures, movies, music etc) You should move all of that to D:. If it's games and programs, then you may want to look at an external hard drive for backup.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Sightless Wisdom said:
Soviet Heavy said:
Sightless Wisdom said:
Ermm... so it has a partition that divides it in half. Unless there is a specific problem you should be able to put whatever files you want on D.
But everything automatically is set to install to C. Whenever I try to install something else, it won't acknowledge D as an option.

EDIT
So I should look for an external harddrive then? Back up everything onto it and then try to work things out?
First, a couple questions: What takes up most of the space on C: ? If it's media(pictures, movies, music etc) You should move all of that to D:. If it's games and programs, then you may want to look at an external hard drive for backup.
It is mostly games that take up space. I upload my pictures to photobucket then delete them, and my videos are all on Steam. And I don't hold music on it.

So most of my games should probably be put onto an external drive then.
 

Sightless Wisdom

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Jul 24, 2009
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Soviet Heavy said:
It is mostly games that take up space. I upload my pictures to photobucket then delete them, and my videos are all on Steam. And I don't hold music on it.

So most of my games should probably be put onto an external drive then.
Ok, well if the games are not on Steam or you don't have the installers for them then yes, I suggest backing them up on an external drive before formatting and or re-partitioning. Essentially anything replaceable can just be left there while re-partitioning because it may not even affect any files.
 

Necator15

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Jan 1, 2010
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Soviet Heavy said:
Sightless Wisdom said:
Ermm... so it has a partition that divides it in half. Unless there is a specific problem you should be able to put whatever files you want on D.
But everything automatically is set to install to C. Whenever I try to install something else, it won't acknowledge D as an option.
What do you mean it doesn't acknowledge it as an option? I've never heard of that happening.
Could you take a screenshot of the installation and show what you're looking at? It's possible that you might be looking in the wrong place.


Also, do you know if the D: drive is a logical drive, or a separate HDD? Some laptops have two hard drives in them.

If it's the former, and you trust yourself you can delete the D: partition and extend the C: partition into that space, and you'll have all 320GB in one drive.

If it's the latter, then there isn't a whole heap you can do. Just post the screeny and I'll(we'll) see what we can do.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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What if I tried formatting the D drive to a smaller size, and then allocating the extra space to the C drive, would that work? I know formatting erases everything on the drive, but when I open the D drive, it says this folder is empty. Could this work perhaps?