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General discussion

Hard Drive is full

Nov 17, 2003 6:14PM PST

OK, my HD is partinioned in two. In the one I have installed the OS and all the applications. Now it is filling up and I wonder if it is completely full what will happen? Will the system automatically redirect my installations in the other HD? What I have to do beyond installing my future applications in the second drive.
Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 7:46PM PST

1. "Now it is filling up and I wonder if it is completely full what will happen?"

Your subject writes one thing, but you state another. Be consistent.

2. "Will the system automatically redirect my installations in the other HD? What I have to do beyond installing my future applications in the second drive."

No. You have to tell the installer to use the other drive. Nothing is automatic in this area. You may want to save your stuff in the other drive.

Bob

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Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 8:36PM PST

Excuuuuse me Robert, if my english is poor as I am Greek. Will it be better for you that I write in Greek? LOL
Thanks for your answer in my question anyway.

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Oh, Geek would be fine.
Nov 17, 2003 8:50PM PST

Oh, oh, that's Greek to me!

I pointed out the subject title not matching the message since "it does make a difference."

Sadly, English gets people in trouble everyday...

Bob

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Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 7:50PM PST

You did not say what sizes are your partitions and how much space is used & unused on each.

Bear in mind in addition to the approx. 1.5GB needed for XP installation you'll need several hundred MB for SP1 + all critical updates.
* System Restore needs 12% of the disk space to operate properly. But you can reduce this if need be.
* PageFile another several hundred MB.
* Hibernation over 500 MB.
* Recycle Bin can store up to 4 GB.
* Temp & TIF files.

If the disk space gets too low System Restore and your OS will stop functioning properly.
You will see "Low Disk space warnings" when you try and save or D/L files.

The system will not automatically redirect files to the other HDD. You will have to do so manually.

BTW, you can relocate My Documents from the C to D Drive which will free up considerable disk space.

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Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 8:48PM PST

OK David
Partition C is 15GBs with 12gbs used and 3 unused.
Partition D is an additional 15GBs

I have not installed any of the updates or SP1 and I am not going to do so. My system runs well without them.

I can understand that I can install all new applications in the other partition. What worries me is that some applications require to be installed in the drive where the system is, in order to run properly, or so I believe (I do not have an example at this moment). If you also believe that, what should I do in this case? Pls bear in mind that I am not quite experienced with computers. So bear with me.
Thanks

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In regards to SP1.
Nov 17, 2003 8:53PM PST

It won't run fine without such if a Nachi, MSBlaster or one of the new varients finds your machine.

You may be incensed over the issue, but I can only wish people who don't patch this problem best of luck. If you are upset about this, remember I didn't create the issue. Only trying to save a few people from the darkness.

Bob

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I am well armed
Nov 18, 2003 12:19AM PST

I manage well with virus and malicious stuff so far due to my extreme carefulness, the Ad Aware, the Spybot Search & Destroy, the Norton A/V and the Zone Alarm. I have caught a couple of those nasty viruses in the past.
Regards

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And so are they.
Nov 18, 2003 12:37AM PST

It's been sadly noted that "safe computing practices" are no longer enough. I did not create the issue, so take any ire to Redmond, WA, USA.

All we (David and people in the Security Forum) can do is to drop warnings and write about this, but in the end you get to recover your machine.

I hope you understand that the risk is worse than you imagine.

And I'll give you a small safe example of an ongoing security issue and delimna. WHY does IE execute CODE in an URL? Here's what you can copy/paste into IE's URL box as a fairly safe example:

file:javascript:while (true) {alert('this browser window will never see the light of day. mohahahha - Dr.Evil');}

This annoying behaviour is just one of the many issues Microsoft must address before someone creates a new worm/bug around this.

Bob

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Re:Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 9:31PM PST

Your C Drive is running low on disk space.

Here is what you can do if you want to:

* Do a Disk CleanUp to get rid of Temp/TIF/empty Recyle Bin and other files you don't need.

* Defrag your drives.

* Move My Documents folder from the C Drive to the D Drive. To do that Right-click My Documents | click Move | browse to the D Drive.
This will save quite a bit of disk space.
Also if you reformat your C Drive your documents will not be affected. But you should still backup your files periodically since HDD can fail.

* Uninstall any programs you have not used in the last 3 months. If you have not used them then they are redundant but occupying valuable disk space.
You can if you want now try and reinstall them on the D Drive and see if they run properly.

* Check your System Restore and see how much disk space is reserved for it. Check your System Restore Calender and see how many restore points are there. If you feel comfortable you can reset the spcae reserved for SR to a smaller amount like 600~800 MB.

* Turn off Hibernation feature.

Alternatively when you feel up to it since you have not installed SP1 + Updates you can start over and delete both partitions and either create one single 30GB partition or make the C Drive 22 GB and the D Drive 8 GB.

Now I fully agree with Bob that you should immediately apply all SP1 & Critical Updates especially those patches to protect against Blaster Worms and plug all security flaws in I.E. and XP.
In view of today's risk this is not an option unless you do not connect your PC to the Internet!

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Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 18, 2003 12:08AM PST

David
I have already implemented all of your suggestions in the past. But right clicking on My Documents doesn't give me the Move option. Am I doing something wrong?

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Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 18, 2003 12:27AM PST

If you've already moved My Documents to another partition, you should still have the Move option or Restore Default in the Properties?

Right-Click My Documents | Properties | Move or Restore Default.

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Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 18, 2003 12:30AM PST

After you right-click on My Documents, then click on Explore. This will give you a list of all your documents. Holdng down the left mouse button, highlight the documents to be moved. Right-click and the left-click on Copy.
Now click on Start and then Explore.
Go down to D drive, Right-click and then click on Paste.

Voila, they are moved, just like magic.

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Re:Re:Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 18, 2003 12:46AM PST

Just to be clear... Copy & Paste from one Drive to another is not the same as Move.

C&P will make a duplicate of all the documents on another drive but the disk space on the C Drive occupied by My Documents remains so is the path. When you create a new document and save it it automatically goes to the original folder.

If you "move" My Documents from the default C Drive to D Drive the path also changes. The disk space in C Drive occupied by My Documents is now free for reuse and any new documents will be saved to the D Drive.

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Well, no luck!
Nov 18, 2003 1:45AM PST

I Right Click on Documents, Properties, Move to partition D, Create new folder, OK.
The files are transferred but the original My Documents are STILL containing the files. So I have them on both folders now.
I must be stupid.(??)

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But it's already moved!!!
Nov 18, 2003 1:59AM PST

Once you've moved My Documents to the D Drive, if you now Right-click My Documents | Properties you will see the Target folder location is now: D:\

You can also verify by the following tests:

1. Open My Computer | Double-click Kiriakos' Documents on the top of the page under Administrator's Document and you will see the Address bar showing D:\.

2. Open the D Drive and you will see all your documents there. These documents are no longer on the C Drive.

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Re:Hard Drive is full
Nov 17, 2003 10:12PM PST

My experience with partitioning is that you will
always run out of space on the OS partition.
IMHO partitioning just muddies the water.
I would get a much larger hdd and Ghost the first
partition over to the larger drive. Then just use
your current drive to store data. Make it primary slave
You will likely have to reinstall some programs.

FWIW.

~Dave

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Re::Hard Drive is full
Nov 18, 2003 12:12AM PST

Thanks Dave
I will follow your advice next time my system crashes and have to reformat. For now it is not possible as I have too many applications loaded and working with them. Besides due to my limited experience I cannot perform Ghosting of the drive.
Thanks for your advice