sony vaio desktop

[deadman1972]

if i got an external hdd would that solve the issue without having to do anything else?

[Number Six]

if i got an external hdd would that solve the issue without having to do anything else?

NO - you still need to make space on the C drive so the OS has room to function properly. Using the 35GB D drive as storage for your downloads is exactly the same thing as using an external drive, but it is much more convenient because it is already there.

[deadman1972]

i now have a copy of windows xp with sp3 and also have the original utilities and drivers on a flash drive,so if i do a clean install using these will that solve my problem?how do i make sure that i will not end up witha partitioned hard drive again?

[tomlee59]

Your motivation for de-partitioning makes no sense to me. It doesn't create additional space, so if you have a space problem, that ain't the way to solve it. There are several motivations for having multiple partitions. The main one is disaster recovery. In a typical crash, an entire partition is lost. If you have only one partition, you're totally SOL. Most IT managers advise keeping programs and temp files on the C: partition, and user data on the D:. The C: partition crashes more often than D: (because the heads spend most of their time where the OS bits are, and that's on the C: drive). Recovery is facilitated by having the D: partition remain intact, allowing you to mount at least that partition and simply copy your user files over from there to the new drive.

So, I don't understand at all why you intend to go to the trouble of wiping the disk clean, making a single partition, and reinstalling all of your apps (and drivers). It seems like a huge amount of pain for at best an incremental space gain, and at the expense of much diminished recovery options.

If you need more space, simply delete unnecessary files, or buy a new drive (either external or internal).

[deadman1972]

simply put there is 20gb on the d drive not being used at all and since my c drive is full i cannot download any more onto it and do not know how to start using the d drive for storage.also the pc is sluggish since the c drive is so full. i would rather not do a clean install but i do not see why i should have 20gb on a drive i cannot use.what is the advantage of having a partioned hdd if it ps you from using 20gb of storage space?

[cobra jet]

Deadman1972

Looking back at your original post you say "i have been using my partners sony vaio desktop last few weeks". If you have not already done so, you may want to check with your partner before you make any major changes to his computer as things can get ugly very quickly when messing with partitions.
I am not a big fan of partitioning a drive, but some computer manufactures seem to use this method for several reasons. As Tomlee59 pointed out, re-partitioning your hard drive into one 70GB drive will not free up any more space. Think of it like as a person having a two car garage or two single car garages of the same square footage. Both will hold about the same amount of stuff.
You can always move any data files from one drive to the other as long a program is not looking for that file. Example, Adobe Premiere track the location of all of the files you used in that project. If you moved all of your still pictures to the D drive, the next time you opened that project Premiere would tell you it can not fine the file and ask you to point it to the correct location. Other programs may not be so friendly and may just chock.
You also need to be careful that no programs were installed on the D partition. If all of the files on the D partition gets moved to the C partition using some utility, I can almost guarantee that the program will stop working.
If this system is 5 years old, you can be assured that it is filled with a bunch of useless junk and temporary files. It is recommended that you keep your primary hard drive with about 10% free space. In this case about 3.5GB.

With your partners OK (sorry to keep beating on that fact), do all or some of the following:

1. Remove any unwanted programs using Windows Add Remove Programs. You can bet that Sony loaded a ton of useless software when they built the system
2. As was suggested, move your downloads to the D drive to free up some space.
3. Delete all files and folders under "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Log in Name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"
4. Delete all files and folders under "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Log in Name\Local Settings\Temp"
5. Search the entire C drive and delete anything with the file extension .tmp
6. Search the C drive for any recognized large files that are not needed anymore. Do not delete any files that you are not sure of and do not delete a file called pagefile.sys at the root of C.
7. Once this is done you should defragment the C drive.

If you still feel you want to partition the drive into one big drive backup all data you would want to save onto an external hard drive, unplug the drive and use a program like Partition Magic to re-partition the drive

[cobra jet]

Deadman1972

You must have posted your last reply when I was typing my extra long reply.
As I has said, I am not a fan of partitioning a drive into two or more logical drives. But once that is done you need to be careful not to break things by re-partitioning your drive. If you have confidence in you ability, it would be the best solution in the long run to have one big drive (IMHO). My suggestions were based on the safest path for you to take. If you move some files to your D drive you should be able to free up enough space to download files to the C drive again. Once on the C drive the file can be moved to the D drive. It would not be my first choice of how to do things, but it is a safe work around.
If you free up around 3.5GB of space or more on the C drive and defragment the hard drive the PC should run 100% better.
One other thing you can do is to move your Page File to the D drive. That file may be a GB or two. If you decide to do that there is a way to do it under "Windows Virtual Memory"

BTW, how much RAM does your system have?

[deadman1972]

system only has 256mb of ram,herself bought it about five years ago in local sony centre.unfortunately sony ireland do not manufacture vaio desktops anymore and follow up support is negligable.she allows me to do what i want with the pc as it is all my stuff on there anyway.i am ok with messing around with pc's program wise to getthings the way i want but i have nevr seen a partioned hdd before and rather than try to transfer files or merger the drives and mess it all up i thought it would be easier to just start from scratch and have just one partition.there seems to be a great deal of different opinions as to what to do with some saying re-install and start again and others saying copy files to d drive and leave it alone.quick question,if i got a new and larger internal hdd and replaced the old one would that make a big differenc?

[cobra jet]

Deadman1972

My biggest concern is always a persons data. That is the thing, that if not backed up can not be retrieved (easily).
If you do not have any data that you care about on this system, only get the new bigger hard drive if you think you will need more then 70GB of total space. Remember that video files can take up big chunk of HDD space.
If you do get a new larger hard drive that would be the best and safest thing to do as you will always have your old hard drive to fall back on
Once you data is safely off of that computer, either backed up to DVD, external hard drive or still stored on your current partitioned hard drive, removed from your computer for safety reasons I would reload Windows XP.
You should remember that if you are using the install CD's that came with the Sony you may end up with the same thing you currently have now as far as the hard drives are concerned. The reason for that is the disks that come with most systems are "Restore disks". They put your system back to it's original factory state. In this case two partitions.
If at all possible, you should use a Windows XP install disk. That way you can be sure that none of the junk that Sony loaded will be reinstalled back on the computer.
At some point in the XP install, depending on what if anything the install sees on the hard drive you will be asked what size you want to make the drive. at this point I always choose to delete the existing partition first, then make the new partition as big a possible.

As far as your Ram, 256MB is not a lot of RAM to run XP. Your computer will continually be swapping data to the hard drive and slowing things to a crawl. I would recommend at least 512MB or 1GB would be even better.

[deadman1972]

thanks cobra i looked a bit more and turns out my total hdd space is only 36gb for both partitions combined.for me this says that i definetly need to get a new bigger hdd maybe 100/120gb in size and i should be ok.i do not have anything on the pc that i cannot afford to lose so a fresh install on a new bigger hdd i think is best.my trouble is going to be getting my hands on a windows xp installation disc as opposed to a manufacturers installation disc.the original drivers and utilities from sony are no problem i already have those downloaded onto a flash drive.did not realise the total hdd space was this small,for me 36gb is way too small,100/120gb would be a lot better.i would also think about putting in as much ram as i can but with a fve year old achnder would it be hard to find?might try ebay and the like.

[johns0]

Get a 500gb hdd,they are cheap to buy.

[tomlee59]

simply put there is 20gb on the d drive not being used at all and since my c drive is full i cannot download any more onto it and do not know how to start using the d drive for storage.also the pc is sluggish since the c drive is so full. i would rather not do a clean install but i do not see why i should have 20gb on a drive i cannot use.what is the advantage of having a partioned hdd if it ps you from using 20gb of storage space?

Of COURSE you can download to the D: drive. Indeed, if you get another drive, it'll end up being, say, the E: drive, and you'll have to learn how to redirect downloads to that anyway, so you might as well learn some basic PC skills right now. When downloading things, you can always choose WHERE the stuff goes. Right now it's defaulting to C:, but that's not etched in stone. To even consider reinstalling, repartitioning only because you aren't willing to spend 5 minutes learning a basic "Windows 101" operation is total lunacy. Thinking of spending hours in a risky operation to avoid spending 5 minutes learning the simple solution? Don't make a lick of sense to me. Heck, even if you were disinclined to do that, you could still simply move files from C: to D: after downloading to C:. There are lots of ways to solve this problem.

So, yes, get another drive (the bigger the better; they're cheap!). AND learn how to change where downloads go, 'cuz you'll still need to learn that skill.