Basic questions on Drive C

Minerva · Post by **Minerva** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 5:08 am

What fills up Drive C? I have a few partition on my hard disk, and use other drives for most programs, downloads, etc. I know swap file is one in the drive, and upgrades for Windows and Antivirus programs, but why it gets fill up so easily? I've got the message "C Drive is full" after 6 months...

Secondly, is it possible to add a new harddrive and use it as the master, and change the current one as the slave, in order to access the files for while? I will eventually run fdisk-reformat-reinstall it, but I like to keep it so that I can recover a few data later. Of course, I do back up before I run fdisk on the new drive and install Windows (98se), but I tend to forget/miss something and realise I lost them later on...

Thanks in advance.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 9:00 am

Some cookies from internet site might take up HDD space.

Also the internet temporary files. If you're using IE, then check C:\windows\Temporary Internet Files\ and it's sub directory.

If you have NU installed you can limit the windows swap file by running Norton Optimation Wizard

Also if you often use print preview feature on MS Office they also create temp file.

You can try using Windows Disk Clean Up to clean the temp files.

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 11:20 am

Originally posted by Minerva
Secondly, is it possible to add a new harddrive and use it as the master, and change the current one as the slave, in order to access the files for while?

Yes. Generally speaking, the BIOS will first look to the Primary Master drive for an operating system. If it finds an operating system on that drive, it will load that operating system. If you have an operating system on the primary slave, the BIOS will not load it unless it doesn't find an OS on the master drive.

This is the best way to recover data off of a drive with a corrupted OS. If you have a drive where the OS has become unbootable, you can slave that drive to another drive and recover your data then wipe out the corrupted drive and rebuild the drive's contents from scratch.

You are doing the smartest thing by having multiple partitions on a drive; I do the same thing. I only use two partitions, one for the OS and one for my program files and data, but I know people who use three (and sometimes more); one for the OS, one for program files and one for data storage. That way if your OS becomes corrupt, you can format the C: drive without losing any of your program or data files.

I have a 30 GB Maxtor drive and my C: partition is 5 GB and my D: partition is 25 GB. Windows itself doesn't take up much space (depending on the version; 98SE is fairly small, but XP Professional is much larger), but as our friend KidD01 says, a lot of other crap often finds its way to the C: drive, so I never make it less than 3 GB.

If data recovery and data backups are things you're worried about, you might consider running a low-level RAID to preserve your data.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 1:15 pm

If you format C:, you'll have to reinstall any applications anyway because a reinstall of the OS resets the registry; i.e. to say, the new OS won't really know the programs are there. However, at least your saved games and character files will remain intact.

Minerva · Post by **Minerva** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:00 am

Originally posted by HighLordDave
You are doing the smartest thing by having multiple partitions on a drive; I do the same thing.

Wow! I've got approval from one of the GB's top computer gee... err, advisor.

Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to prevent my computer from total shut down while changing my drives. Yes, I had to run fdisk-reformat-reinstall the whole damn thing!

I suspect the older drive was just too old. It's been acting odd, noisy, and slow, so it has been too tough on it to be used for games. I'll probably make partitions for windows, games (to run defrag more efficiently), files, and create partition for Win XP (Japanese) and Linux (just wants to try

) in the second drive.

@Ned: I lost Morrowind saved game.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 12:02 pm

If a drive is acting odd, hit it.

If a drive is acting noisy, it is probably best to back up data and replace the drive.

If the drive is slower than it once was, it probably needs a good defragmenting.

@Minerva, that is sad. my comment was in reference to HLD's ideas though; i.e. if you keep applications and data on a drive other than your system partition (the drive where your operating system resides) and then reformat that partitioin and reinstall an operating system, you will still need to reinstall your applications as the current operating system won't know the application are there.