sony vaio desktop

[deadman1972]

long story short i have been using my partners sony vaio desktop last few weeks and all is ok but for a problem with the hard drive.for some reason when you open "my computer" there appears to be two hard drives or the hard drive appears to be split in two each of them being 35gb capacity.my partner said it has always been this way from the shop new but i am a little confused.why would there be two hard drives showing when there is only one in the tower?also it is now causing problems as the first one is full and it is now preventing me from downloading large files as there is only about 2gb left on it.i do not know how to switch over to the other hard drive or even if i can just make them into one complete hard drive.i have never seen this on any other pc or notebook before or never even heard of it.can someone please make sense of this for me?sony ireland no longer make desktops or even backup parts or anything just for notebooks.any help appreciated

[Number Six]

Did you open the tower to actually see if there is 1 or 2 physical HDD units? If there is only 1 unit then, do they have different drive letters? If yes, then you have 1 HDD with 2 partitions.

[Dratheus]

My guess is it's partitioned. Do a search for a safe partition manager like norton partition magic and use that to combine them into one. There might be free one's out there as well, probably are actually, but I'm not an expert on partition software so I don't know of any.

[deadman1972]

they sure do buddy i just checked.the one in use says "local disc (c)" and the other one says "vaio (d)".thought i was the only one up at this ungodly hour where you from?

[Dratheus]

It's not an "ungodly" hour here in the U.S. 5:30 PM pacific time (west coast united states)

[deadman1972]

why would the hard drive come like that from the shop i thought that was just something people did that were into tweaking their computers?also what is the advantage of having a partioned hdd like this?

[Number Six]

You should do 2 things:

1. Move all your downloads from drive C to drive D and delete them from drive C - this is your Boot and OS drive and needs free space for the OS to work properly.

2. When you download files, have them saved to drive D.


There are different reasons that a HDD is partitioned:

1. Are the partitions FAT, FAT32, or NTFS?

2. Since drive D is named VAIO - it may be a recovery partition. My ACER laptop is configured this way.

[deadman1972]

thanks six but i need the dummies guide when i download stuff it is mainly using vuze(azureus) and it automatically saves it to drive c.can i not just combine the two drives somehow i mean why do i need two drives?

[johns0]

The second hard drive is most likely a partitioned restore drive so best not to touch it.

[deadman1972]

thanks guys but can any of ye explain to me why would i have a split hard drive in the first place? also 35gb seems an awful lot for a recovery partition? if i cannot combine the two then all i have is a small 35gb drive to work with? certainly explains why texas holdem on facebook keeps freezing

[deadman1972]

both partitions are ntfs file system does that mean anything?

[Number Six]

You should be able to go into settings for vuze and change the default download save path to drive D - I can't help with this because I never heard of vuze.

There is obviously a reason for 2 partitions - best not to try and change it - you could lose all the info on the computer and destroy the OS in the process. Besides, it is not your computer - it is your partner's.


NTFS is good - sometimes they make 2 partitions for FAT and FAT32 to accommodate a special configuration.

[deadman1972]

hey johnso is that the angel puppet i see eh?

[deadman1972]

yes six but the damn thing is so slow now with the hdd full that it is driving us both nuts.besides it is all my stuff on there anyway and so long as i do not blow it up she lets me do what i want program wise or anything.

[Number Six]

The best thing to do is move downloaded files to drive D, and delete all temporary files from drive C so that the OS has space to function - right now it is choking. I do not know where you have these files because I can't see what is on the drive.

[Dratheus]

In my opinion: Back up all ur important stuff to a disc/discs/external HDD and then use the program I mentioned before or a similar utility and merge the 2 partitions. I could be wrong, but I doubt anything crucial to running ur pc is stored on a second partition equal to the size of your primary. Join them together, and if I'm wrong and ur comp stops working then you'll at least have 1 partition that you can now re-install windows onto and then copy all ur backed-up stuff back on to.

As a slightly related side-note I like to format and re-install WinXP every 6 months or so just for shiggles. I find it keeps things running smoothly for me.

You all can /flame me now :P

[Number Six]

You all can /flame me now :P

We have more professional people on this forum that are better qualified to do this - I defer to them :P


I do not think that the OP'er has the technical skills to do what you suggest - no offense to you deadman1972 - just the impression that I am getting.

[deadman1972]

actually i do that with xp as well,i do not like vista at all xp is much easier to use.i do not have a disc to reinstall xp from.

[deadman1972]

it is not that i cannot do tech stuff like that i have never come across a partioned hard drive before that's all.no offense taken i suppose i am a newbie when it comes to partioned hdd.

[Dratheus]

You bought your laptop legitimately? It came w/ a legitimate copy of windows? I don't think you'd be wrong to acquire a *ahem* "free" copy of the same version of windows your running to re-install in case the crap hits the fan when you merge your partitions (I'll leave you to figure out how to do that). Also, merging partitions isn't too difficult. The process is well documented on how do to it. Google knows the answer to every question in the universe. I'd recommend looking up some tutorials on how to partition/merge partitions on Google and then giving it a shot. Or find a tech-savvy friend to do it for you.

[Number Six]

Google knows the answer to every question in the universe.

How do you turn LEAD into GOLD? Google can't help me.

[Dratheus]

Google knows the answer to every question in the universe.

How do you turn LEAD into GOLD? Google can't help me.

Google can't teach you to do the impossible, but it can still provide you the answer to ur question, which is: "you can't."

[deadman1972]

yes my partner bought the desktop in a sony centre shop about five years ago but cannot find the discs that came with it.

[deadman1972]

actually you could turn lead into gold if you happened to have a particle accelerator lying aroud lol

[Number Six]

actually you could turn lead into gold if you happened to have a particle accelerator lying aroud lol

I know that it is theoretically and even technically possible - it has been done - BUT GOOGLE is not telling me exactly how to do it

[Dratheus]

actually you could turn lead into gold if you happened to have a particle accelerator lying aroud lol

Ohhh yea... I think I have one of those stored in my attic. I can't belive I havn't used it for that yet. Thanks deadman! ^_^

BUT GOOGLE is not telling me exactly how to do it

Well since there was only 5m between the time I made my post regarding google and ur initial reply to it I'd say you havn't spent enough time searching

[johns0]

hey johnso is that the angel puppet i see eh?

Yup,funny episode,as to the second partition is the anything in the start menu or documentation for the sony that will let you burn a back-up restore disc?

[gadgetguy]

You might check to see if there's a hidden partition containing the restore files. (Laptops often do.)

[johns0]

One thing you can do is get the legit key code for the winxp which should be on the laptop,if not you can get a key finder to see what the key code is and record that and get a copy of winxp and delete both partitions and install on one partition.

[deadman1972]

so basically i need a copy of win xp then do a reformatt and reinstall?haven't got anything on the desktop that is that important or that cannot be reinstalled from windows update centre.