Disk space - really stupid question....
Discussion
My Asus 160GB hard disk laptop obviously should have 160GB.
When I go into My Computer it shows the disk as two areas (partitions?), one VistaOS (C: ) with a total size of 74.5GB and some 9GB free, and the other is DATA (D: ) with 66.7GB total size and all of it free.
The question is, when I have used up all the remaining 9GB space on VistaOS will it automatically start using the other area?
Does my question make sense? It's a standard out-of-the-box set up as I don't have the nouse to do anything to it!
When I go into My Computer it shows the disk as two areas (partitions?), one VistaOS (C: ) with a total size of 74.5GB and some 9GB free, and the other is DATA (D: ) with 66.7GB total size and all of it free.
The question is, when I have used up all the remaining 9GB space on VistaOS will it automatically start using the other area?
Does my question make sense? It's a standard out-of-the-box set up as I don't have the nouse to do anything to it!
T40ORA said:
My Asus 160GB hard disk laptop obviously should have 160GB.
When I go into My Computer it shows the disk as two areas (partitions?), one VistaOS (C: ) with a total size of 74.5GB and some 9GB free, and the other is DATA (D: ) with 66.7GB total size and all of it free.
The question is, when I have used up all the remaining 9GB space on VistaOS will it automatically start using the other area?
Does my question make sense? It's a standard out-of-the-box set up as I don't have the nouse to do anything to it!
No, the C: is purely for the Vista operating system and programme files (including My Documents). D: is purely for data. You can move data from D: into C: or save directly to C:. I'm not sure what you mean by "automatically". You'll just get an error message saying "insufficient space on drive".When I go into My Computer it shows the disk as two areas (partitions?), one VistaOS (C: ) with a total size of 74.5GB and some 9GB free, and the other is DATA (D: ) with 66.7GB total size and all of it free.
The question is, when I have used up all the remaining 9GB space on VistaOS will it automatically start using the other area?
Does my question make sense? It's a standard out-of-the-box set up as I don't have the nouse to do anything to it!
You will suffer considerable performance issues once you get to 90% capacity. You should look to get another HDD now - they are very cheap at the moment!
160 GB is the decimal size, but as drives work in binary (1's & 0's), then you need to divide by 1024 (2 to the power of 16 - 16-bit address system) to get the true size of it. The bit still missing, is normal formatting and overheads.
Regarding the 2nd partition, no that won't be utilised automatically, and with running at close to 90% of the main partition, you'll want to offload some of the stuff taking up space on it, otherwise you run into corruption problems through insufficient free space for Virtual Memory.
Regarding the 2nd partition, no that won't be utilised automatically, and with running at close to 90% of the main partition, you'll want to offload some of the stuff taking up space on it, otherwise you run into corruption problems through insufficient free space for Virtual Memory.
T40ORA said:
OK, so can I just drop and drag between the partitions?
Yup. (Cut and Paste is what you need, under the Edit menu in windows explorer.)T40ORA said:
Can I default so that, say, all music and pictures in future go to the DATA (D: ) area?
Sort of. Normally when you make a new file you have to choose where it goes, so just choose some folder in D not in C. In terms of making it automatic - it depends how the files get on your machine.Often there's software which automatically downloads the photos off your camera which you can configure to save into a folder in D not C if you wish. Also, when you use Window Media Player (or whatever) to turn a CD into mp3's then you can also tell it where to store things by default.
To be fair, if you're asking this type of question it might not be a bad idea to get a more computer friendly mate over to show you how it all works as trying to understand this type of thing via forum posts can be difficult for both you and the person doing the explaining.
I'd have to check exactly how but you can move your My Documents area to the D: Drive by right-clicking on it, selecting properties and choosing the Move option. This is how it works on my XP laptop and I'm sure Vista has an equivalent (I just can't be arsed going upstairs to check)
ETA
Here you go http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/11/25/change-my...
ETA
Here you go http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/11/25/change-my...
Edited by MarkK on Tuesday 9th February 18:19
Well..... I sorted out Music and Pictures but I've done something strange with Documents.
There are two entries now on my D: drive with different names, but they both seem linked. I.e. I created a new folder in one and it also appears in the other.
My Documents shortcut is pointing at a folder name in the D: drive, but it is a different name to that which appears in the bar at the top..
Oh Feck it. I'm confused so anyone reading this will be even more so.
There are two entries now on my D: drive with different names, but they both seem linked. I.e. I created a new folder in one and it also appears in the other.
My Documents shortcut is pointing at a folder name in the D: drive, but it is a different name to that which appears in the bar at the top..
Oh Feck it. I'm confused so anyone reading this will be even more so.
partition magic or similar programs can be used to resize partitions. You can pinch space from one and give to the other. Always a good idea to keep documents, pictures, music etc off the operating system partition though, so you can blat windows and reinstall it without worrying about your things you want to keep. Can't guard you in the event of a disk fail though, in the hardware
A lot of computer assemblers partition the disk for you. They do this so you can put an operating system (sometimes its already there) and progs on the first one, and everything else on the second. Then people proceed to put everything on the first and wonder why they run out of space! Happens very often indeed.
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