Tech: hard drive overload - help!!

Subject: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: john c
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 11:10 AM

I think I´m heading for a big problem - my hard drive is partitioned into 2 seperate bits (I´m not very technically minded, so the terminology may be a bit off!), ie c & d. C has 2 gigabytes and d the remaining 38. As advised, anything big, like music and photos, etc goes onto d, but c, with the windows and office files on it is filling up at an alarming rate. So much so that I´m down to 155 mbs of freespace. I´ve cleared all the junk (temp files and caches) and defragmented, but that made next to no difference, and apparently compressing the drive wont bring me much more either. Does anyone out there have any idea what I´m doing wrong or how on earth I can get some more space before crashing into digital oblivion??????

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Amos
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 11:15 AM

Look for documents that should be stored on the second partition. Look for applications you don't need. That's not enough free space for the HD to operate securely -- it is at risk of running out of space and hanging or disappearing. So far you 've been lucky.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:04 PM

you need to look directly at the list of files and applications and see where the space has gone....

there are little programs which will do this, as well as looking at them in Explorer or some other file manager

if you can install something likeSpace Monger (it ought to work ok from D:) it might give you an idea of where the problem is.)...

'sometimes' there can be hidden files that are not easily found...but just a look thru Explorer with 'details' turned on ought to help...

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:08 PM

a lot of MicroSloth applications install by default to the c: drive - but you can un-install and re-install (most) of them to the D: drive.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:16 PM

there is even an article at PC World about reclaiming drive space.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:18 PM

Don't forget to empty your trash--Also, if you have extraneous music files tucked here or there, remember that they take up quite a bit of space--I mention this because a couple weeks ago, I converted a number MIDI files digital audio files and burned them to CD--the other day, I noticed a huge deficit in memory and realized I hadn't trashed the audio files when I was done with them--

Graphic files and photoes. especially if you had to change their format, can be indavertantly huge, as well--

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: john c
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:04 PM

Thanks for the (incredibly quick & helpful) advice. Its getting better! Space Monger helped a lot. Do any of you have any experience about converting things to FAT32 - I´m on Windows 98 and apparently that can free a lot of space, too.
Muchas Garcias,
John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:52 PM

BillD, you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of programs! Thansk for the link!

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:11 PM

Conversion to FAT32 won't give you any more space, but will supposedly make drive operation "more efficient," especially for larger drives. (This is a Mickey$oft opinion, not necessary the experience of users; although I do use it and have had good results.)

The 2GB C:\ partition seems a little small, even for Win98, although it should be enough for a "basic" installation of Win98 and Office. 4 to 5GB would be more "normal" for C:\ with Win98 and FAT format. The problem you're likely to encounter with the small partition is that Windows will not, as a general rule, use more than 10% or so of the free space on the drive where it's installed for temp files; and if there isn't enough free space things lock up or crash.

The 155MB you have free now should be enough for most "normal" Win98 programs to run, as long as you don't make a practice of having more than one or two windows (application programs) open at a time; but any reduction below that level is likely to cause problems, so your concern is justified.

The simple recommendation would be to re-partition to give yourself at least 5GB in the C:\ partition, but that would mean reinstalling everything. Another option would be one of the drive management programs like Partition Magic that allows you to repartition "on the fly" without reinstalling things. (There are a couple of others with good reputations.)

Windows 98 alone should not use more than about 450MB for a normal installation in C:\Windows. My existing Win98 machine shows an additional 450MB in Program Files, which includes full Office Professional and a "normal" load of other programs (total about 1GB for Win98 + Office +), so it is likely that you have nearly 1GB of other stuff loaded on C:\, much of which could probably be moved to D:\.

Note that to move most programs you need to uninstall them from C:\ and reinstall on D:\. Just copying them to the new drive often fails to work.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:29 PM

One thing that's been left out (almost) is that, although windows programs may insist on being installed on C:\, just about everything else can be forced onto the other drive. Remember what John in Kansas said about .exe files, that's installed, not moved. If you get Partition Magic, you might consider a third partition for just programs. You can also force My Documents on to the other partition.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: OldPossum
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 04:28 PM

Lots of good advice in this thread already. Here is a couple of ideas:

1. You say that you have defragged – but have you run Scandisk? Sometimes unused disk space gets marked as used by mistake. Scandisk can fix that. It's worth a try and it might gain you a little more space.

If you are still not satisfied you can try this:

2. When you only have a little space left on the C drive the biggest problem is that your swap file does not have enough "elbow-room", which degrades the performance. The obvious solution: Simply move the swap file to drive D instead! I will post instructions if you are interested.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 04:32 PM

" Note that to move most programs you need to uninstall them from C:\ and reinstall on D:\. Just copying them to the new drive often fails to work." ..John's comment is important, because there is more to many programs than just the directory they are installed in. If they write information to the registry, all that data needs to be changed, and that is quite tricky--hence re-installing. I learned the hard way to keep copies of the original .zip or .exe files somewhere...preferably on a CD somewhere, to avoid having to re-download them (if you can FIND them!). If I live to be 107, I 'may' learn to keep better records.

If you know a program does not write to the registry or modify any other setting or programs, then it 'can' be just moved, but even then links and shortcuts have to be changed..(and yes, there IS a little program designed to do that! *grin*) it is called Change of Address and was put out by PC Magazine.) There is also a program especially to catalog your software...where you got it, who created it (often different), what you paid, etc...

Yes, kat, following all these little, and no-so-little, programs in an interesting hobby, but you can easily over-do it and get stuff you never use and forget about, and that perform almost identical functions. I do LIKE knowing about freeware that does worthwhile tricks, just like some folks like running an auto salvage yard..*grin*..and sometimes, it serves a purpose!. Funny, I almost never use Space Monger, because I have PowerDesk as my file manager, and the version of that I have has a VERY good disk size manager built in.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 07:59 PM

Apologies for stating the obvious.

Why not think long term instead of bandaid?

Buy another hard drive and a program like Partition Magic (Mentioned by JohninKansas).
Copy everything from the current d: drive to the new drive. Repartition the current c: drive so that it uses all available space on the old drive.
Now you have one physical drive for programs and a second different physical drive for data.
While you're at it, throw in a third hard drive if you've got the room. Use it for backups.
Three drives, three functions. What's not to like?
I was in CompUSA today. They had a 40 GB drive for $60 after the rebate.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:50 AM

My previous comments on file size neglected some details that you likely should consider. You can find a starting point to look at the hard drive formats, FAT16 and FAT32, that you can use with Win98, at Microsoft Knowledge base article 118335:

Maximum Partition Size Using FAT16 File System

"Microsoft MS-DOS versions 4.0 and later allow FDISK to partition hard disks up to 4 gigabytes (GB) in size. However, the MS-DOS file allocation table (FAT) file system can support only 2 GB per partition. Because of this fact, a hard disk between 2 and 4 GB in size must be broken down into multiple partitions, each of which does not exceed 2 GB.

"NOTE: Windows 95 OEM Service Release version 2 and later support drives larger than 2 GB using the FAT32 file system. For more information about the FAT32 file system, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
ARTICLE-ID: 154997
TITLE : Description of the FAT32 File System"

The first article gives links to some other information. One you may want to look at is:

ARTICLE-ID: 69912
TITLE : MS-DOS Partitioning Summary

You may also want to find, and bookmark, Windows 98 Support Center, for links to common questions and answers, instructions, the latest downloads, and more. At this page, you will find the note:

"In accordance with the Microsoft Product Support Lifecycle, no-charge support for Windows 98 will end on July 1, 2003. Paid-only support will continue to be available from Microsoft at $35 per incident. Support will also be available from some third party providers.

"Microsoft will also continue to offer a variety of self-help resources on the Product Support Services Web site until at least January 16, 2006, two years after phone support for Windows 98 ends on January 16, 2004. These resources include the Microsoft Knowledge Base and Newsgroups."

Since Win98 is already "unsupported," I'd suggest you make sure that you get all of the available free updates before it disappears completely.

My answer, that converting the existing C:\ partition to FAT32 won't get you any more space, was correct, on the assumption that it's still a 2GB partition.. What I failed to mention is that you do need to use FAT32 if you want to make the C:\ partition larger than 2GB.

Your D:\ partition is a little problematic. If it's not FAT32, the FDISK that came with your Win98 might allow you to assign "rest of the drive" to the D:\ partition, but would only use the first 2GB of it – not the whole 38GB(?) that's physically there. SOME OEM builders used an "overlay" system that allows accessing partitions larger than 2MB in FAT (FAT16) format, but the "cluster" size gets enormous, which means that you can't really store much more info in the larger partition than on a smaller "normal" one.

When Win98 was new, 10GB drives were considered "large," and were usually partitioned into 2GB FAT logical drives. To use the whole 10GB, with FAT (FAT16) format, you would need to have C:\, D:\, E:\, and F:\ partitions, with 2GB in each. (4 is usually enough because a 10GB drive doesn't actually have 10 useable GB on it.)

If you currently have only two FAT partititions, then you are likely only using 4 GB of the space available on your hard drive, regardless of the "size" of the drive. This seems an unlikely situation, but could happen, so you should check to make sure that you really have all of the physical drive working. Right clicking the drive in Windows Explorer, and selecting Properties will show you what file system, FAT or FAT32, the drive is using, and what its approximate total size is. If the two drives don't add up to about what the disk is supposed to be capable of, then the only good solution is probably to re-partition the drive. This will probably mean backing up and reinstalling everything in both existing partitions.

Microsoft does have a published procedure for transferring everything to a new hard drive. You can also use it to back up for re-installation after you mess with the format and partitioning of your existing drive, if you have someplace to put the necessary backups. You should print yourself a copy of:

Q166172 Duplicating Windows 95/98/98 Second Edition Installation to a New Hard Disk,

from the Mickey$oft Knowledge Base, and make the appropriate backups. It is possible to transfer your existing setup without a lot of reconfiguring, but you have to plan ahead. This article may also be useful if you decide to add another drive.

Adding another drive is an option, but be aware that your existing EIDE controller can only handle 4 devices. If you already have one hard drive, a floppy drive, and perhaps a CD-ROM, you may have already used 3 (or more) of the available hookups. You can add another EIDE controller for about $40 (US), but Win98 "plug and play" doesn't always do this gracefully. An external USB hard drive is another option, but will likely cost a little more than a standard internal drive. (An external drive should probably NOT be used for your boot partition, since the boot process needs to be at least partially complete before the drive is "fully" accessible.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 12:20 PM

I have a Sony VAIO computer, running Windows XP. The hard drive is partitioned with about 16 GB on C: and 58 on D:
I suppose it has a small partition on C: so things will run faster, but it sure is inconvenient. Is there really a significant advantage to having a small partition for C: ?
What programs should I put on D: ?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 12:26 PM

joe - basically anything that will run from d: rather then c:!

basically your boot partition should be for only what is required to be there...

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From:
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 12:58 PM

My basic system consists of 2 hard drives, both 60Gigs. I use the first one for C: and will accomodate any programs which will not allow movement to another drive. The other I've separated into different drives and are meant to store any and ALL files that I create.

My reasoning on this is that C: with Windows and such gets the most workout. It's the one MOST prevalent to damage. Therefore it makes sense to keep all IRREPLACEABLE files (ie ones YOU created or modified or otherwise want to keep), on the second drive. Even if you partition, the damage on the c: could have problems for the rest of the partitions. Have TWO drives. Safer.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:05 PM

JohninKansas
if you use Partition Magic, you USUALLY don't have to reformat, this SW will do "on-the-fly" repartitioning, but if you haven't made backups you take the risk that occassionally something can go wrong.


Partition Magic (depending on the version) usually came with a "change drive" utility for programs, saving a reinstall.

If you do get this SW, you should consider making a seperate patition for the Swapfile, it keeps it out of the way of all the other stuff, especially when defragmenting and I explained this on my page (see below)..

It can be useful to have multiple partitions, of different sizes, and cluster sizes, and I explained this on my page (see below).

If you keep JUST the Operating System on Drive C: & ALL programs (including Office, MSIE, & all other MS stuff) on other drives, the occassional heart failure of Windows and necessary reinstall, usually means that the SW on the other drives is untouched, and USUALLY reinstalls without reloading.

I also have a virtual drive where I keep my Desktop (You need TweekUI to shift it), and this survives USUALLY occassional Windows heart failures too.

Norton Utilities has many useful things to assist too.

And you may be interested in looking at my page, now getting a bit long in the tooth but still relevant, especially for the total techie newbie, which has received many positive comments,
WIN9X Speed Optimisations - Theory and Practice, split into several linked pages.

It goes over many of the suggestions listed here, as well as many others, all far too lengthy to copy here. It attempts to correct much garbage spouted by those who don't really know what they are talking about technically, and who get confused, and attempts to do it in a logical simple flow.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:31 PM

I don't understand much of the stuff either - but 2 gigabytes should be more than enough for any of the stuff you need to keep the computer going. Reinstalling the other programmes you've installed to C, and this time using the browse-button to put them on D instead of C should get you down to size easily enough

Having a second and even a third hard drive sounds quite a good idea - but you'd best check up that your power supply is OK to run them.

I say that because, since installing a second larger drive and an improved video card so that I could use a better monitor, after the old one went, I've found that it can be murder getting the computer up and running, - it tends to freeze halfway through the startup process more often than not, at the Windows screen, so I have to push the off switch and start up in Safe Mode, and close it from there before trying to start again. It can take three goes or more.

I've been told this is probably happening because the power supply I've got, which came with the computer, is only 100 watts. Mind the guy who told me that was working in a shop and would like me to buy a new computer, so can someone who understands this stuff confirm that a more powerful power supply is actually likely to solve the problem? (The problem is, the case isn't big enough for the standard Power Supplies, and finding a more powerful one that fits physically is tricky - and how much more powerful would be enough?)

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:34 PM

Joe -

With XP, unless you are using - or planning to "maybe someday" use - some alternate operating system, there is really no reason to partition a normal sized single hard drive. If you are formatted in NTFS, which is recommended for XP, you're unlikely to benefit from breaking up the drive into smaller partitions, since the cluster size is fixed unless you go to real extremes. If you're still using FAT32, cluster size can creep up somewhat with very large partitions; but you're not likely to see much effect from it.

My current "main machine" has one internal hard drive, NTFS C:\, at 120GB. I also use an external USB hard drive, FAT32 G:\, for an additional 120GB. (Both show 111GB useable.)

If you boot more than one op system, then each operating system should be isolated in its own partition; but there is not a good reason to partition for any other reason.

The core Windows files are pretty much isolated in C:\Windows. General (shared) program files are in C:\Program Files. Operating files for individual users are separated in C:\Documents and Settings\User, with a separate "User" for each operator.

The XP C:\Windows can run 2 to 3 GB alone, and C:\Program Files will run in the vicinity of 3+ GB for typical use. A typical (one or two Users, + Admin) Documents and settings should be less than 1GB, unless you leave a lot of stuff in your email folder(s). You thus need 7 or 8 GB just for program installation. XP works best though, if you let it use the free space in the partition where it's installed for temp files - and let it do the temp space management. This means that you should have at least 10GB, preferably somewhat more, in the main WinXP partition, so your 16GB doesn't sound too bad.

It is a very good idea to keep data files separated from program files, just to make them easier to find, and for the convenience when you back up (which of course we all do, frequently ;-)). You can do this without partitioning if you just create a "DOCS" or "MyStuff" folder in your single partition and "point" all your programs there (or to separate folders there). If you already have two perfectly good partitions, you just need to point all the applications at D:\ and keep all the stuff you create and/or download there.

You can also "isolate" your data files using the Mickey$oft MickeyMou$e "My Documents" folder, but this has several "weak points" for a single user machine. It does some things that are helpful if your machine is on a large network where you share files with many other users - and where your SysAdmin does backups for you; but for the typical single user machine it's a P.I.A. (Many of the "files" in "My Documents" are actually only shortcuts, so backing up "My Documents" doesn't necessarily get the actual file - just as an example.) I use "My Folders" only as a temporary landing spot for downloads, that are deleted or moved to my "Documents" space as soon as I've double-scanned for viruses and decided to keep them.

For Win95/98 users, and perhaps WinME, partitioning is still helpful, but for XP it is not really needed unless you use multiple OSs. Perhaps in a few years when you can get a 10TB drive for a few bucks...?

John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 07:04 AM

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 03:41 PM

sure,,, 10 TB drive...and then they will be putting The Library of Congress online, along with all the classic movies, and everyone will think they need a copy, and 10 TB will be 'medium' *wry grin*

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 04:52 PM

Bill D:

I remember when I got my first 35MB drive (for $475 US), and couldn't use all of it because the version of DOS I had couldn't read the last 5. Wasn't a problem 'cause I didn't have enough of those 300K floppies to fill it.

Now we've got 250MB floppies, and 120GB hard drives for less than $175.

But how come now, with 240GB on line my machine's so stuffed? (rhetorical question!)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 06:48 PM

A question for John in Kansas, please:

I've always used multiple partitions to protect my data, if nothing else. If the OS goes belly up, you can reinstall without losing the data, no matter what. How does NTFS make this unnecessary. Empty minds want to know.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 07:48 PM

Another comment from me, the kind of consumer the software folks love......I know just enough to be dangerous. (a little knowledge...)

When I first got one of my super-duper hard drives, 2 GB which was a lot several years ago...the dealer partitioned the hard drive for me because he said it would make it run faster and more efficiently. Well.....as I tried to put some things on D and some on C and always tried to download stuff.....it seems that I got into a terrible mess with "file sharing" and never could get some programs to run! I now have a 20 GB hard drive, non partitioned.

What was I doing wrong?

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 02:54 AM

misophist and Mary in K

With the old FAT (FAT16) format, the maximum partition you could have was 2GB. If you go back one or two DOS versions, you were limited to something like 30MB (and your whole operating system had to fit in the 640K of RAM that machines had then).

With Win98SE, you gained the ability to partition a disk in 4GB slices - although you might still be able to read only the first 2GB of a slice during the "crossover" to newer systems.

With FAT32, you can use partitions about as large as any commonly available drive, fairly efficiently. (The FAT32 format could use the 2TB drive I see advertized in the clicky above the input box here?) The FAT32 format does carry over some of the "clunkies" of the basic FAT system, though - with the most obvious being that #@!%$ defrag routine.

NTFS format does pretty much the same thing as FAT32, but much more "efficiently" on large drives. Neither FAT32 nor NTFS "make it unnecessary" to partition. They simply make it possible to NOT PARTITION. And if you're using WinXP, NTFS seems to do a little better than FAT32.

The question of whether to partition a drive depends on what works best with the op system you're using. WinXP is the first Windows system that really works better with large drives than with small ones, and that is safe (stable) enough to let you do it without worrying too much.

WinXP Professional, with Office Professional, needs a minimum of about 20GB to install and operate. (Home versions somewhat less?) XP doesn't like having the temp space moved, so you do need enough space on your system partition for all the temp stuff, and XP temp will normally only use 10 percent of the free space on the drive where the op system is located. Office, Win Explorer, and core parts of Internet Explorer are so tightly integrated that they all should be on the system partition. Altogether, you need at least 30GB in C:\ for the system to limp along, if you've got a "full" installation. More is better (and remember that FAT32 defrag won't even attempt to run if your drive is more than about 80% full).

WinXP implements the much touted "protection layer" effectively enough so that no application can write to disk except by going through Windows with a "Windows Legal" write process. Hence, if Windows loses it's mind - no legal process = no write to disk. You may still get "hangs" that lose what's in RAM, but Windows will NOT write garbage that wipes out your data. [Obviously, if "no ap can access the disk directly," Norton wouldn't work; but it's the principal that counts. We should say "no XP-compliant ap can access the disk directly."]

IF you avoid non-compliant software, and IF you back up your data with reasonable regularity, there is simply no reason to partition most drives; and WinXP runs better on a large partition than on small ones.

IF you just use the system, and don't muck with it too much, it's far more likely that your drive will trash itself due to mechanical failure than due to data corruption caused by Windows or any WinXP-compliant software. If the bearings crack or the motor burns out, it won't make much difference how many partitions you've lost. I've lost 8 drives due to mechanical failure in the last 40 years, and NONE due to system induced data corruption, even when I used Windows 2.0. (We won't discuss "operator error.")

If you really want "data separation" then multiple drives makes a lot more sense than partitioning, for XP, although there's really no harm in splitting a drive up if it makes you fell warm and fuzzy. Just be sure you've got enough space in the system partition for clean operation.

And note that this all applies only to XP. Earlier versions of Windows need a whole 'nother analysis.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 10:22 AM

Thank you. For me, I think XP Compliant software might be the issue. I'm glad I don't have to decide.

Subject: RE: Tech: hard drive overload - help!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 04:55 PM

For most of us, a lot of what we put on our hard drives could probably be handled by the WOD (Write-Only-Drive) that a manufacturer announced a few years ago. Unlimited capacity, guaranteed never to fail, uses very little power. ... and a whole lot of other good features.

I understand that they got a few thousand requests for more data before it was generally recognized that there was some significance to the announcement being in the April 1 issue of the mag where it showed up.

John