Moving files from one drive to another??

em05 · 17-10-2008, 09:13 AM

Hi

Can anyone help?

My C Drive has 19.GB capacity and only 0.99GB free, our Data Drive J: has 89.2GB space and 89.1GB free, the computer was built by a friend and he said that he has the 2 drives so as to keep important stuff in one and kids games etc in the other, but it looks like everything is in C??

Can I move stuff from C to J? if so how do I do it?.

Thanks in advance.

Sally.

**Digerati** · 17-10-2008, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Can I move stuff from C to J?

Some stuff, but not all. Anything to do with Windows and your hardware (drivers) needs to be with Windows on your boot C drive.

But all your added programs can be moved. You can copy your My Documents folder to j, then tell Windows to use that from now on. If you have not moved your Page File, you can move that to j too.

Your programs cannot just be moved because the registry will not know where to find them. It is best to uninstall them from c, then re-install them on j drive.

I recommend your first step be to move your Page File to your empty j drive. Moving the Page File to a second drive is a preferred method by many experts. I also think it is an excellent idea and I recommend it. Not only will it free up some disk space, but it should give a little performance boost too as it frees up some of the duties of your boot drive.

Ideally, you want set up the page file on an empty drive so that it will be the first thing on the drive. So you are sitting good there. To move your Page File, follow these procedures:

Right click on My Computer > Properties
Click on the Advanced Tab, then under the Performance section, click on Settings
Click on the Advanced Tab, then under Virtual Memory, click on the Change button.

Click on the C drive to highlight it, and click on No Paging file, then click on Set.

IMPORTANT: If you don't click the "Set" button, it won't set!

Now click on the drive where you want the Page File and here you have a choice. Either select System Managed Size or Custom size. XP actually does pretty well if you let it manage the Page File, as long as it is a large drive with lots of free space. I'm old school so I prefer to manage it myself, so I use a "fixed" size page file by setting the initial and maximum size to the same value. System Managed is fine for most people.

I think your second step should be to clean the clutter from your C: drive. Windows (XP or Vista) Disk Cleanup, ATF Cleaner or CCleaner. If you use CCleaner, then during installation, uncheck the option to install the Yahoo toolbar and before first use, go to Options > Settings > Advanced and ensure Only delete files in Windows Temp folders older than 48 hours is unchecked.

Note: Ensure you know your site credentials (user name and password) for sites you frequent before cleaning; you may have to login again at next visit.

Go through Control Panel and uninstall programs you added, but no longer need. If not sure, don't do it. This alone should free up some disk space, and it should run a bit quicker with the Page File on the second disk. Then work your way through your Start Menu and decide what programs you want to keep, gather up your disks, or figure out the download sites and be ready to reinstall.

I would create a folder on J drive called My Downloads" and go out and download the latest version of your antivirus program, firewall, anti-spyware, and other programs in put them in My Downloads on j.

Then create a folder called "Security Stuff". Then uninstall all your old security programs and reinstall the latest versions on j drive. To make sure this happens, ALWAYS - chose "Custom Install" for EVERY program you install for the REST of your life! This way, you can tell the program to install under J:\Security Stuff\ and not under C:\Program Files. Also, when you choose Custom Install, be sure you read every option or you may end up installing extra Toolbars and other unwanted, space hogging stuff software companies want to "foist" on us.

Basically, your j drive is a big empty filing cabinet. I recommend sit down and decide how you want folders and sub-folders setup. It will soon be impossible to know where everything is, so you need a good filing system so you know where to go look for it, AND so you already have a logical place to save new (related) stuff.

Under My Documents, for example, I have dozens of folders, including My Music, My Photos, Taxes, Family, Finances, Work, School, My Computers and many more folders under each one.

em05 · 17-10-2008, 11:16 PM

WOW thanks Digerati for all the help. I will be sitting down tomorrow and following your instructions, it all sounds a bit complicated but I will give it a go.

Thanks again.

townsbg · 18-10-2008, 05:09 AM

My secondary drive is (purposefully) larger than my primary which I reserve just for my OSs & programs. My installation files, documents, etc. I keep on my secondary both for size & for security. Never heard of putting the page file on another partition-I didn't know that you could do that. Anyway not all programs give you the option on where the files are put. Moving documents & installation file & the page file might help a great deal and you might find that just doing that is enough. My c partition is only 30 gb & I have alot of large programs but it's plenty of room. You might look at what you have installed. Do you have large games that you don't play? Do you have the newest version of adobe reader which by the way installs at over 200 mb? Foxit reader installs at less than 10. Thats just an example. I just thought that I'd throw that out.

By the way, the best way to move your my documents is to create the folder that you want to move your documents to, right click on my documents, choose properties, choose the location tab, click on move, & browse to the new loaction. It will automatically move the files, update the settings, & you will be able to access your my document folder from the start menu & desktop. I don't recommend that do this any other way because if you move the entire folder for your user accout under documents & settings folder you will have trouble because your programs as well as windows relies on that folder for users settings, data, etc. Does that make sense?

**Digerati** · 18-10-2008, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Anyway not all programs give you the option on where the files are put

Most do. And if not, there needs to be a good reason, besides programmer laziness, which is what it usually boils down to. Either that or arrogance on the programmer - "our way or nothing" - customer wishes don't matter. Unacceptable either way.

em05 · 18-10-2008, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digerati

Some stuff, but not all. Anything to do with Windows and your hardware (drivers) needs to be with Windows on your boot C drive.

Your programs cannot just be moved because the registry will not know where to find them. It is best to uninstall them from c, then re-install them on j drive.

I recommend your first step be to move your Page File to your empty j drive. Moving the Page File to a second drive is a preferred method by many experts. I also think it is an excellent idea and I recommend it. Not only will it free up some disk space, but it should give a little performance boost too as it frees up some of the duties of your boot drive.

Ideally, you want set up the page file on an empty drive so that it will be the first thing on the drive. So you are sitting good there. To move your Page File, follow these procedures:

Right click on My Computer > Properties
Click on the Advanced Tab, then under the Performance section, click on Settings
Click on the Advanced Tab, then under Virtual Memory, click on the Change button.

Click on the C drive to highlight it, and click on No Paging file, then click on Set.

IMPORTANT: If you don't click the "Set" button, it won't set!

Now click on the drive where you want the Page File and here you have a choice. Either select System Managed Size or Custom size. XP actually does pretty well if you let it manage the Page File, as long as it is a large drive with lots of free space. I'm old school so I prefer to manage it myself, so I use a "fixed" size page file by setting the initial and maximum size to the same value. System Managed is fine for most people.

I have been through the all the steps, re-started my computer and nothing has changed, C: drive is still full?

**Digerati** · 18-10-2008, 03:41 PM

Then you need to look at what programs you have installed on c drive, uninstall them, then reinstall on your j drive - Windows XP will fit in 10Gb so you have about 9Gb of programs and files that can be moved.

em05 · 18-10-2008, 04:12 PM

I have been into everything on C: drive and moved the things like games, camera info, and anything else that I remembered installing into J: it has freed up space I now have 3.02GB free on C:drive.

I hope that it will be O.K anything that looked a bit too technical I have left in C:

There are still so many folders in C: I am working through all of them slowly, are there any ones in particular that I need to not touch, I am leaving anything that has windows written in it.

P.S can I move my Spybot, Spyware guard etc into J:drive as they use quite a bit of space.

Sally.

**Digerati** · 18-10-2008, 04:58 PM

When concerned about simply deleting a folder (or file), a trick I use all the time for files and folders I don't recognize, or don't know what they do anymore, is simply rename them for a little while. If the file, folder (or a file inside the folder) is needed, you will get some sort of file not found notice, and you simply rename it back.

Renaming has to be done in such a way that you can easily remember what to name it back to if necessary. So I append the word "delete" and today's date to the original file/folder name.

For example:

Old filename: FileName.xyz
New filename: FileName.xyz-delete-10-18-08

Old folder name: FolderABC
New folder name: FolderABC-delete-10-18-08

If something breaks, I don't have to guess what the old name was, and can easily rename it back, and be good to go. If all is fine, I leave it for a week or two (sometimes months if the file/folder is buried deep in the drive somewhere and I forget about it) to see what happens and make sure all my programs still work properly.

Whenever I stumble upon the file or folder again, I can see by the date how long it has been with this name, and easily determine if it is safe to simply delete it.

What you need to remember from now on is to install to your j drive when possible.

em05 · 18-10-2008, 05:18 PM

Thanks for that it makes alot of sense, I will do that with any folders I'm not too sure about.