Re-sizing my Hard Drive partitions.

I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible to
reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

Daniel60 wrote:
I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C:Â*Â*Â* 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G:Â*Â*Â* 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H:Â*Â*Â* 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible to
reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

If C is the system disk (which it usually is) then that's the one that
needs more space.

Are those three partitions the total of your HD? 100GB?
If that's the case then I'd definitely recommend replacing it with a
larger one; at least 500GB.
They're pretty cheap these days; and the SSDs have come down a lot in
price, so I'd take the opportunity to install one.

Ed

Daniel60 wrote:
I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible to
reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

cmd.exe, Run as Administrator

powercfg /h off

That will disable hibernation, and more importantly,
delete hiberfil.sys, a file which wastes space. Of course,
you're probably on a laptop, and the function is essential
to handling low battery situations, and you can't afford
to turn that off. I turn that off on my desktops, as it
potentially takes too long to write out to disk when needed.

*******

In System control panel (sysdm.cpl ???), you can go
to System Protection, turn off System Restore on C:, then
turn it back on again. That should free up at least 3GB.

*******

cleanmgr.exe

You can run that program, and select various things
to clean out. It's highly unlikely an "old" OS is sittin
in C:\Windows.old, because the OS has automated policies
on removing such things for you. On Win10, I think Windows.old
is removed after 10 days. On other OSes, a Windows.old
might survive 30 days. Just to show what ballpark their
survival is in. Windows.old exists in the interest of
allowing an OS upgrade to be rolled back.

I don't really think cleanmgr.exe is going to help.
Note that there is one tick box in there, which causes
the tool to use NTFS compression (not very efficient),
to shrink the usage of the C: drive. That can take
two or three hours to run. I don't think that is
particularly clever, even if your C: drive is 60GB.

*******

You can use SequoiaView or WinDirStat, to review the contents
of your home directory.

*******

If you use the built-in "Shrink" and "Expand" functions in
Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc), those cannot move the
origin (left-most side of the partition. The MS provided
tools, only move the right edge.

+-----+----------------+------------+ - - +-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition | Shrink G: | Shrink H: |
+-----+----------------+------------+ - - +-----------+ - - +

Doing Shrinks there, using the MS method, won't help.

However, if you delete G: , look at the nice space you get.

+-----+----------------+--- - - - - - - -+-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition | Unallocated | Shrink H: |
+-----+----------------+--- - - - - - - -+-----------+ - - +

+-----+-----------------------------------+-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition expanded | Shrink H: |
+-----+-----------------------------------+-----------+ - - +

The combination of "delete G:" plus "Expand C:"
might work.

To plan these things, you need to start by looking at
Disk Management, see which side the partitions are on,
understand what the MS limitations are, and so on.

You can get third-party partition managers for free.
I have used Paragon PM14 or so, for this purpose, and
it has been OK so far. Do a backup, before dialing in
any Partition Manager, just in case. For example,
a popular other brand of Partition Manager, managed
to break a FAT32 partition on its first try. If PM14 needs
to modify the C: partition, it will reboot into a
standalone WinPE OS to do the modification. It will
reboot into regular Windows after the modification of
C: is completed.

You generally want to run CHKDSK on partitions, before
using Partition Management tools. Tick the box to correct
problems if detected. The purpose of this, is for drives
which have not received the "robust maintenance" that some
of the later MS OSes provide, there can be latent faults
in the file system. Scanning and correcting file system
errors, before Partition Management, may aid in avoiding
problems. With no guarantees of course. It's just hat
when you complain that "product X broke my disk", the
maker of the software will respond with "were the
partitions CHKDSK clean ? your file system was probably
corrupted before we touched it". They won't take responsibility
for damage.

Both backup software and Partition Management software, can do
consistency checks while they work. And they can spot problems
before they authorize a run. But no single procedure is
entirely bulletproof, so you can improvise a bit on your own.

*******

In the good old days, Partition Managers offered "merge"
function, and you could squeeze C:, G:, H:, in two operations,
to make a bigger C: only partition. This is an operation that is
pretty difficult to do correctly, and has a relatively
high risk factor. You could not pay me to use "Merge" here.
I combine backup operations, with other kinds of moves, to
get what I want. "Merge" is way down my list.

*******

Your G: is damn close to full, and that should raise a notification
box right there. I would be instantly curious about how that happened
and do some cleanup there too. Get out the WinDirStat for a look
and so on.

HTH,
Paul

"Daniel60" wrote in message
news |I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....
|
| C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
| G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
| H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB
|

Paul had some good suggestions. Besides
hiberfil.sys, how is your swap file set up? You
could block any swap on C and put a specific-
sized swap file on H.

Another idea is to check where the bloat is.
Some may be data files that you could store on H.
There's really no reason for an OS partition to get
anywhere near 60 GB. Even slop like Win7 shouldn't
be that big. (The solution for a hoarder is not to
rent them a storage trailer.)

Another good method is to image new installs
and then reinstall once in awhile. One of the worst
problems with Vista/7 is the winsxs folder, which
can grow to dozens of GB. The install basically forces
you to accept storing the whole DVD on disk, to make
it look like Windows driver support is better than it
used to be. You end up storing thousands of drivers
that you'll never use. Then, every time Windows
comes across drivers or libraries in versions it hasn't
stored, those go into winsxs. Trying to clean it out
can be time consuming and potentially destabilizing.
Essentially, Windows Vista/7 has a compulsive
hoarding disorder. It starts out at a ridiculously
bloated 7-9 GB and then keeps growing. If you create
a disk image after initial install and setup then you not
only have a good backup -- you also a simple way to
throw out all the hoarded junk periodically.

On 23/09/2017 9:21 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
Daniel60 wrote:
I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible
to reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

If C is the system disk (which it usually is) then that's the one that
needs more space.

Yes, C: is the system drive, G: is the Executables (WP, Browser, Music,
etc) H: is User Data, Music, etc.

Are those three partitions the total of your HD? 100GB?
If that's the case then I'd definitely recommend replacing it with a
larger one; at least 500GB.
They're pretty cheap these days; and the SSDs have come down a lot in
price, so I'd take the opportunity to install one.

Ed

No, the HD is 500GB but the rest of it is allocated to Linux. Dumping
some of the Linux is a possibility, but just re-allocating the Windows
space is my preference.

Daniel

On 23/09/2017 10:02 PM, Paul wrote:
Daniel60 wrote:
I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible
to reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

cmd.exe, Run as Administrator

powercfg /h off

That will disable hibernation, and more importantly,
delete hiberfil.sys, a file which wastes space. Of course,
you're probably on a laptop, and the function is essential
to handling low battery situations, and you can't afford
to turn that off. I turn that off on my desktops, as it
potentially takes too long to write out to disk when needed.

*******

In System control panel (sysdm.cpl ???), you can go
to System Protection, turn off System Restore on C:, then
turn it back on again. That should free up at least 3GB.

*******

cleanmgr.exe

You can run that program, and select various things
to clean out. It's highly unlikely an "old" OS is sittin
in C:\Windows.old, because the OS has automated policies
on removing such things for you. On Win10, I think Windows.old
is removed after 10 days. On other OSes, a Windows.old
might survive 30 days. Just to show what ballpark their
survival is in. Windows.old exists in the interest of
allowing an OS upgrade to be rolled back.

I don't really think cleanmgr.exe is going to help.
Note that there is one tick box in there, which causes
the tool to use NTFS compression (not very efficient),
to shrink the usage of the C: drive. That can take
two or three hours to run. I don't think that is
particularly clever, even if your C: drive is 60GB.

*******

You can use SequoiaView or WinDirStat, to review the contents
of your home directory.

*******

If you use the built-in "Shrink" and "Expand" functions in
Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc), those cannot move the
origin (left-most side of the partition. The MS provided
tools, only move the right edge.

+-----+----------------+------------+ - - +-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition | Shrink G: | Shrink H: |
+-----+----------------+------------+ - - +-----------+ - - +

Doing Shrinks there, using the MS method, won't help.

However, if you delete G: , look at the nice space you get.

+-----+----------------+--- - - - - - - -+-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition | Unallocated | Shrink H: |
+-----+----------------+--- - - - - - - -+-----------+ - - +

+-----+-----------------------------------+-----------+ - - +
| MBR | C: partition expanded | Shrink H: |
+-----+-----------------------------------+-----------+ - - +

The combination of "delete G:" plus "Expand C:"
might work.

To plan these things, you need to start by looking at
Disk Management, see which side the partitions are on,
understand what the MS limitations are, and so on.

You can get third-party partition managers for free.
I have used Paragon PM14 or so, for this purpose, and
it has been OK so far. Do a backup, before dialing in
any Partition Manager, just in case. For example,
a popular other brand of Partition Manager, managed
to break a FAT32 partition on its first try. If PM14 needs
to modify the C: partition, it will reboot into a
standalone WinPE OS to do the modification. It will
reboot into regular Windows after the modification of
C: is completed.

You generally want to run CHKDSK on partitions, before
using Partition Management tools. Tick the box to correct
problems if detected. The purpose of this, is for drives
which have not received the "robust maintenance" that some
of the later MS OSes provide, there can be latent faults
in the file system. Scanning and correcting file system
errors, before Partition Management, may aid in avoiding
problems. With no guarantees of course. It's just hat
when you complain that "product X broke my disk", the
maker of the software will respond with "were the
partitions CHKDSK clean ? your file system was probably
corrupted before we touched it". They won't take responsibility
for damage.

Both backup software and Partition Management software, can do
consistency checks while they work. And they can spot problems
before they authorize a run. But no single procedure is
entirely bulletproof, so you can improvise a bit on your own.

*******

In the good old days, Partition Managers offered "merge"
function, and you could squeeze C:, G:, H:, in two operations,
to make a bigger C: only partition. This is an operation that is
pretty difficult to do correctly, and has a relatively
high risk factor. You could not pay me to use "Merge" here.
I combine backup operations, with other kinds of moves, to
get what I want. "Merge" is way down my list.

*******

Your G: is damn close to full, and that should raise a notification
box right there. I would be instantly curious about how that happened
and do some cleanup there too. Get out the WinDirStat for a look
and so on.

HTH,
Paul

Thanks, Paul, looks like there's a lot of stuff to re-read there before
I try anything!!

Daniel

On 23/09/2017 11:14 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Daniel60" wrote in message
news |I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

| | C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
| G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
| H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB |

Paul had some good suggestions. Besides hiberfil.sys, how is your
swap file set up? You could block any swap on C and put a specific-
sized swap file on H.

Swap File!! Hmmm!! Got one set up on the HD for the Linux systems that I
have installed. Was not aware that Windows 7 used a Swap File as well.
Where might I find it??

Another idea is to check where the bloat is. Some may be data files
that you could store on H. There's really no reason for an OS
partition to get anywhere near 60 GB. Even slop like Win7 shouldn't
be that big. (The solution for a hoarder is not to rent them a
storage trailer.)

Another good method is to image new installs and then reinstall once
in awhile. One of the worst problems with Vista/7 is the winsxs
folder, which can grow to dozens of GB. The install basically forces
you to accept storing the whole DVD on disk, to make it look like
Windows driver support is better than it used to be. You end up
storing thousands of drivers that you'll never use. Then, every time
Windows comes across drivers or libraries in versions it hasn't
stored, those go into winsxs. Trying to clean it out can be time
consuming and potentially destabilizing. Essentially, Windows Vista/7
has a compulsive hoarding disorder. It starts out at a ridiculously
bloated 7-9 GB and then keeps growing. If you create a disk image
after initial install and setup then you not only have a good backup
-- you also a simple way to throw out all the hoarded junk
periodically.

Thanks, Mayayana. I've often wondered about those Windows Updates that
I've been getting for the last decade. Are they all stored somewhere on
the C:, incorporated into the system, and then left on the HD somewhere
(maybe somewhere under C:\Windows somewhere).

Can I get rid of them without crashing my system??

Daniel

Daniel60 wrote:


Thanks, Mayayana. I've often wondered about those Windows Updates that
I've been getting for the last decade. Are they all stored somewhere on
the C:, incorporated into the system, and then left on the HD somewhere
(maybe somewhere under C:\Windows somewhere).

Can I get rid of them without crashing my system??

Daniel

There are some installers that get archived on the machine
which you could make a record of (a notes.txt for yourself),
then move the files to a storage device with more space on it.
The problem is, if you needed (for some reason) to uninstall
one of those things, it's going to ask for the file, and won't
do the uninstall until you put it back.

WinXP had some stuff like that too, and I did move some
of it off the C: and stored it elsewhere. And I don't think
I ever ran into a problem because of it.

I keep my pagefile at a ceremonial size of 1GB (350MB would
work), and my hiberfil.sys at zero. The 256MB kernel swap file,
I haven't bothered torturing that one yet.

And Microsoft does occasionally consider removing content
from WinSXS, but the change in size has never amounted to
more than 1GB or so. Their initial opinion, was to let it
grow and grow, but because IT professionals with large
collections of virtual machines complained, they did a
little work on cleanup. And the IT guys were quite happy to
get even a 1GB improvement on each VM image. So Microsoft had
satisfied one of its most important customers.

The cleanmgr.exe backport, does some compression of WinSXS
"seldom used content", but I personally am not pleased or
impressed with this. THe NTFS compressor is lightweight.
The comperssor used on an install.wim is heavyweight, and
more could be achieved by leaving some of this crap on an
overlay file system. And that approach was used (partially)
on tablets. It still caused problems, because the overlay
was growing too much, just before the OS version needed to
be upgraded. And that's all done on tablets with 32GB eMMC
storage.

Paul

"Daniel60" wrote

|
| Swap File!! Hmmm!! Got one set up on the HD for the Linux systems that I
| have installed. Was not aware that Windows 7 used a Swap File as well.
| Where might I find it??

System - Advanced - Performance - Advanced.
(I'm currently on XP but I don't remember it
changing in 7. I only keep 400 MB swap. Most people
have multpile GB of RAM these days.)


| Thanks, Mayayana. I've often wondered about those Windows Updates that
| I've been getting for the last decade. Are they all stored somewhere on
| the C:, incorporated into the system, and then left on the HD somewhere
| (maybe somewhere under C:\Windows somewhere).
|
| Can I get rid of them without crashing my system??
|

Updates. Update reversers. Installer files.... I once
tried moving winsxs to another partition and it worked.
I then deleted it and got weird stuff like nothing
in Explorer windows. If you try to delete what you
don't need it's hopeless. There are 10s of thousands
of files. You should be able to remove the driver store
folder, but that's not nearly as big. That's why I
personally like the disk image idea. I install, put in the
latest SP, then disable Windows Update.

On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 00:51:46 +1000, Daniel60 wrote:

Swap File!! Hmmm!! Got one set up on the HD for the Linux systems that I
have installed. Was not aware that Windows 7 used a Swap File as well.
Where might I find it??


C:\Pagefile.sys -- but DON'T delete it. (You can't, without changing
some non-obvious things.)

First, Windows needs a swap file, unless you've got plenty of
physical RAM. If it needs to swap to virtual memory (the swap file
or page file) and can't, Windows will definitely slow down and may
crash.

But second, and this is the clincher: It's on C: and if I read your
original article correctly you're concerned with G: and H:, not C:.

If you do have plenty of RAM -- to check, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to
turn on Task Mangler, and look at the Performance tab -- then you can
reduce or eliminate the swap file if you really want to. But to do
that, you have to get fairly deep into menus:
1. Right-click Computer and select Properties.
2. In left-hand menu, Advanced System Settings
3. Advanced tab (should be pre-selected).
4. In the Performance section, click the Settings button.
5. In the Performance Options dialog, select the Advanced tab.
6. Click the Change button to view or change swap file size.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 13:52:59 -0400, Wolf K wrote:
FWIW, the Source here has advertised 2TB drives for around $80CAD. Or $60US.


Was it recently? Hard drives were cheap a year or more ago, but HD
prices have shot up here, because of a shortage of prometheum or
something in Thailand.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

"Stan Brown" wrote

| C:\Pagefile.sys -- but DON'T delete it. (You can't, without changing
| some non-obvious things.)
|

Already described. See above. And it does not have
to be on C drive. It can be moved, then the C version
can be deleted.

he has a right idea, but, get the outside drive, then
instead of deletion, just move it all to the outside drive,
and free up your inside hard drive. This correct much of your
problem, without compression of the drive. You can always compress
your outside drive later on, so that it also frees up space and
never erases anything.

On 9/23/2017 10:52 AM, Wolf K scribbled:
On 2017-09-23 06:54, Daniel60 wrote:
I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

You have a 128GB drive by the looks of it. Some of that is taken by
rescue/repair/backup partitions without drive letters.

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible
to reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

TIA

Daniel

You may not like my advice:

Eliminate all files you don't need on your system. As in data you don't
use right now. Programs you've not used in months. Etc. Delete or Move
to the external drive. This is a temporary fix, though, since data
accumulates.

So I would go a step further: Buy another external drives for data
storage. Use F: for a working drive. Copy everything off H: and G: onto
F: then trash them and extend C: into the free space. External G: will
be your backup drive. If necessary, buy a USB hub so that you can keep
the external drives attached as much as possible. Make sure the hub is
one that takes power from a wall transformer, unpowered USB hubs can be
unreliable.

FWIW, the Source here has advertised 2TB drives for around $80CAD. Or
$60US.

On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 20:54:46 +1000, Daniel60
wrote:

I currently have my Hard Drive partitioned like so ....

C: 57.2GB used out of 60.1GB
G: 19.5GB used out of 19.5GB (22.1MB actually showing as free)
H: 14.5GB free out of 22.4GB

(Drive D: is the DVD RW Drive, Drive E: is my Wireless Internet Dongle
and Drive F: is a removable USB drive)

Windows 7 keeps complaining about "Low Disk Space" so is it possible to
reduce the size of H: (say 5GB) and add the extra space to G:??

Or should I just copy a whole directory from G: to H: and then delete
the original directory from G:??

Any other suggestions??

Freeware BleachBit (SourceForge) and Wise Disk Cleaner
(http://www.wisecleaner.com/wise-disk-cleaner.html) wipe a lot of
useless stuff. But DO carefully examine what they flag before hitting
the CLEAN button. Once it's gone, it's gone.
After the cleanup, you might not need to re-size.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

On 24/09/2017 2:25 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Daniel60" wrote

|
| Swap File!! Hmmm!! Got one set up on the HD for the Linux systems that I
| have installed. Was not aware that Windows 7 used a Swap File as well.
| Where might I find it??

System - Advanced - Performance - Advanced.
(I'm currently on XP but I don't remember it
changing in 7. I only keep 400 MB swap. Most people
have multpile GB of RAM these days.)

0MB .... Hmm! Did I turn it off the last time I defrag'ed .. and forget
to turn it back on??

| Thanks, Mayayana. I've often wondered about those Windows Updates that
| I've been getting for the last decade. Are they all stored somewhere on
| the C:, incorporated into the system, and then left on the HD somewhere
| (maybe somewhere under C:\Windows somewhere).
|
| Can I get rid of them without crashing my system??
|

Updates. Update reversers. Installer files.... I once
tried moving winsxs to another partition and it worked.
I then deleted it and got weird stuff like nothing
in Explorer windows. If you try to delete what you
don't need it's hopeless. There are 10s of thousands
of files. You should be able to remove the driver store
folder, but that's not nearly as big. That's why I
personally like the disk image idea. I install, put in the
latest SP, then disable Windows Update.

Thanks, Mayayana.

Daniel