Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Hard disks can be divided into multiple partitions, each showing up as a different drive. Changing the layout of partitions requires special tools.
I have a laptop that somebody partitioned so that the small section is C: and the large (and mostly empty) section is D:. No matter how I try to get programs loaded into D: instead, everything goes to C: and therefore C: is full, while most of the hard drive, namely D:, is empty. Is there any way other than starting fresh that I can change to size of C? I tried renaming C: to D: and vice versa, but of course that didn't work.
•
Yes, I wouldn't expect that rename to work. There are simply too many places, such as within the system registry, that have recorded the fact that things are on "C:". If you rename C: to D:, the system wouldn't be able to find them.
What you're looking for is partitioning software.
•
I've actually heard lots of arguments one way or the other on how to best partition a hard disk. My general feeling is that the pros and cons of one over the other are typically small, and thus I opt for simplicity: I create only one partition per hard disk.
If you already have a partitioned hard disk and installed software using both partitions, then reverting to a single partition is not a simple step and is most easily done by reinstalling, mostly because programs that were expecting C: and D: are no longer going to find one or the other. Sorry about that.
However, resizing the existing partitions may be another mater.
There are several commercial programs that indicate that they can resize existing disk partitions without data loss including Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director Suite, and Partition Manager.
The "problem" with these programs? They're not free. And to solve a problem that you may experience only very occasionally, I know that makes it difficult to justify the expense. Now, to be fair, each tool actually does much more than just resize partitions, but if that's really the only the feature you want, then the cost of that feature is the cost of the product.
Unfortunately, I've not found a good, free alternative that runs under Windows.
And to top it off, I had high hopes that a free Linux utility, QtParted, would do the job, but I was unable to get your scenario to work.
I booted a machine from a Knoppix Live CD (a bootable CD that boots into an operating system without requiring or modifying any hard disk on the machine), and gave QtParted a whirl.
While QtParted is a good partitioning utility, it's not a great one, and it fell short in a couple of respects. Specifically, in attempting to replicate exactly your scenario (make C: bigger, while making D: correspondingly smaller), I was unable to move the partitions around in any fashion that would make that happen. I was able to shrink a partition, and create a new one in the newly freed space, but then altering the boundary between them, as you would need to do, appeared to be impossible - partitions that should have been able to move would not.
Perhaps a reader will suggest a good alternative and free tool for your scenario.
Finally, regardless of which tool you use, you must back up before playing with partitions. The cost of failure when repartitioning a hard disk is very high, and includes losing the entire contents. I'm not saying that it's likely - most tools have good reputations and for the most part work well. But in the off chance that there's an error, you most definitely want to have a backup to recover from.
Article C2839 - November 14, 2006
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
sounds a great idea. i might try it. my problem was... oh it's a loooooooooooooong story. anyway i will try it.
Posted by: Matthew at September 5, 2010 7:28 AMI used a program which is free for personal use: http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
Posted by: from Tokyo at January 6, 2011 4:22 AMI used it to move partitions and to resize a partition. It worked perfectly and the user interface is very intuitive.
I have the exact same problem. I feel like the simplest thing would be for more things to be saved on the D drive, but it seems impossible?
24-Feb-2011
Posted by: Orange Helsfield at February 23, 2011 6:11 PM
Easeus saved our day. We paid out for Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite, and wasted 5 hours trying to install it only for it to say 'corrupted download' each time. In fact, it was the software at the end of their emailed link which was flakey, and so in the 6th hour we downloaded from a different part of their site - which installed fine.
Posted by: Jay at September 1, 2011 9:25 AMHowever... I personally found the software underwhelming.
All we wanted to do was make a C: drive partition bigger, and the D: drive partition smaller. To begin with, the HDM prog seemed cute and easy to use. Then we realised that in fact it was maybe more a case of cute graphics covering a confusing, counter-intuitive app.
There seemed to be no way to simply shrink D, resize C - and when we exited the Wizard, we were confronted with lots of jargon and messages saying more or less 'not possible - period' but with no clear explanation why. In short, a badly designed app especially given home users are meant to be able to use it.
After reading this forum (thanks!) I hesitantly tried the free app from EASEUS - thank you, thank you, thank you - within seconds (literally) of downloading the app, I worked out how to grab hold of one side of the D graphic and shrunk it, grabbed hold of one side of the C graphic and enlarged it, said Apply and...
.. I now have a perfect machine, with no space problem.
If there was some way to get my USD50 back from Paragon and donate it to the EASEUS guys, I would.
The moral of the story - don't be fooled by international offices and fancy websites!
I just want to say i read this article and downloaded the free program partitionwizard in one of the above comments and it wouldnt work, said it was overlapping and there was a bug, then i downloaded EaseUS and it worked fine. They were very similar, so they both will probably work. Saved all my data, made the c drive larger and the d drive smaller and only took maybe 10 minutes, including downloading the program and all! Thanks for the help guys.
Posted by: GeneralJenkins at January 9, 2012 7:08 AM