Hardware & Technical Organising a messed up HDD

Leif_Erikson · May 30, 2020

Need to sort out my hard drive as it is messed up and I am running out of room for storage. Currently looks like this-

Would like to increase size of drive c from the unallocated partition but is not available to do on Windows.

Does anyone recommend free software to download to do this?

EUS · May 30, 2020

You can only have 4 primary partitions on a h-drive.
Not sure what the 525MB recovery partition is for.
If you really need to keep the current layout, you'll have to delete D:, create an extended partition equaling the rest of the h-drive space, then are free to create any amount of partitions of any size, and any type inside that extended partition.

EUS · May 30, 2020

I haven't used any windows tools since partition magic, if windows' tools are no good, use a linux live cd to run a partition tool.

GParted -- A free application for graphically managing disk device partitions

gparted.org

Misread originally, just noticed you want to extend c:
To do that, easiest way would be to delete D:, delete, or move recovery to the end of the h-drive, increase c:'s size, then create D: again.
Or move D: & recovery to end, then increase C: size. If D: is empty, it shouldn't take long.

Robin of Spiritwood · May 30, 2020

I use a free utility called Ccleaner to remove surplus files, something that could be helpful before you make the changes. Performance improves aftrr defragging.

IPFreely · May 30, 2020

Back up your HD to a cloud server then reformat the HD, relegating the C: as the largest partition - You cant enlarge a drive without either info on the deleted drive letter to enlarge the selected drive - ( if the info on the selected drive you want to delete is smaller than the Boot partition you can transfer the info to that partition by select all and drag n drop )
I have Elite under its own drive letter -
Any large program can have its own designation ( D: - Z: - J: whatever ), OR save a lot of trouble and just keep your saves in a cloud, like Google or DropBox for all your pix or videos you have made to save space -
DropBox has a free save limit of 50Gb if I remember correctly, maybe more now. -
You can access that service anytime to reclaim a certain video or pic or message or ? that you have stored.

IPFreely · May 30, 2020

Robin of Spiritwood said:
I use a free utility called Ccleaner to remove surplus files, something that could be helpful before you make the changes. Performance improves after defragging.

I have used CCleaner for years, it updates regularly also. You can do many things from the menu that other programs won't or can't. Like clean or defrag the registry.

Morbad · May 30, 2020

You cannot extend the C: partition because partitions must be contiguous and the reserve partition is in the way. You probably don't need the recovery partition, so you should be able to remove it with diskpart (using the 'delete partition override' command when you have the correct disk and partition selected) without issue. After that you can delete the D: partition and extend C: to fill the rest of the disk.

Stealthie · Jun 1, 2020

In my experience, there's little benefit to trying to "optimise" a physical HDD.

These days, we have so many gigantic files, and our HDDs are so gigantic too, that it's processing the data that takes time rather than accessing it and reading it off the HDD.

The only way you're going to improve your situation - given that the files on your current logical drives are, apparently, enough to slow things down - is by purchasing a new HDD.
Ideally, maybe go for a 256gb SSD (pretty cheap these days) and install your OS and some other frequently used software on that then use your current HDD as a dedicated file storage drive.

Personally, I have a 256gb SSD as my C drive, with my OS on it, my D drive is a 2tb HDD which I install software on and my E drive is another 2tb HDD which I store files and other junk on.

To reitterate, though, I wouldn't bother wasting time juggling around files or trying to modify logical drives.
If that amount of files on a single physical HDD is causing it to run slowly, monkeying around with "optimisation" tools isn't going to help much and, at worst, could ruin your day.

Morbad · Jun 1, 2020

With a mechanical HDD, read/write performance and physical access times are far more of a bottleneck than processing it. They are slow, get significantly slower near outside tracks, or when files are heavily fragmented, so optimizing them can certainly be beneficial.

Anyway, performance isn't the issue the OP has...this is a1TB drive that has less than 150GB usable because the OP somehow botched the partitioning of the drive and cannot extend the main one beyond that size.

EUS · Jun 1, 2020

It's not bad, he's got D: which is RAW, not even usable yet.

Stealthie · Jun 1, 2020

Morbad said:
Anyway, performance isn't the issue the OP has...this is a1TB drive that has less than 150GB usable because the OP somehow botched the partitioning of the drive and cannot extend the main one beyond that size.

I was addressing advice suggesting using "disk clean-up" software.
Like I said, if it's slowing down noticeably as a result of the files he has got on the C drive, transferring them to a logical D drive isn't going to help much.

Also, to reitterate the other point I made, I wouldn't recommend using any tool to monkey around with a HDD that includes the bootable partition unless you've backed-up everything on your HDD and are prepared to re-install your OS and drivers.
It might work out okay but if you break something you're going to be royally stuffed.

That's another reason why it might be better to take the opportunity to buy a new HDD/SSD to use as a dedicated boot-disk, temporarily copy important stuff onto it and then just "fdisk" the current HDD and reset it either as a single drive or, perhaps, as 2 logical drives, one for software and one for files.

Stealthie · Jun 1, 2020

double post.

Ralph Vargr · Jun 3, 2020

Stealthie said:
In my experience, there's little benefit to trying to "optimise" a physical HDD.

These days, we have so many gigantic files, and our HDDs are so gigantic too, that it's processing the data that takes time rather than accessing it and reading it off the HDD.

The only way you're going to improve your situation - given that the files on your current logical drives are, apparently, enough to slow things down - is by purchasing a new HDD.
Ideally, maybe go for a 256gb SSD (pretty cheap these days) and install your OS and some other frequently used software on that then use your current HDD as a dedicated file storage drive.

Personally, I have a 256gb SSD as my C drive, with my OS on it, my D drive is a 2tb HDD which I install software on and my E drive is another 2tb HDD which I store files and other junk on.

To reitterate, though, I wouldn't bother wasting time juggling around files or trying to modify logical drives.
If that amount of files on a single physical HDD is causing it to run slowly, monkeying around with "optimisation" tools isn't going to help much and, at worst, could ruin your day.

All too true. And, messing with partitions can lead to tragic data loss.

Back up the data, and get a new drive. Playing with partitions is courting the lightning bolt.

One physical drive, one partition.

Morbad · Jun 3, 2020

Extending a partition is pretty damn safe, as far as these things go.

There should always be backups, but the most straightforward solution to the OP's problem is to delete all partitions after the system on (C

and extend C: to fill the rest of the drive. If that fails, then one can wipe the drive and reinstall the OS, and reload data from the backup, or relegate that drive to storage and put the OS on a new SSD. However, these should not be the first resort, unless the OP is experiencing other issues, IMO.

GuruNot · Jun 9, 2020

The recovery partition holds your recovery environment - winre.wim (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...-environment--windows-re--technical-reference) which can be useful when you upgrade your OS or if you have issues with it.

How about getting apps / documents off C: ??

What is your current D: Drive used for ? If it is nothing then delete it, create a new ~800GB D: Drive and migrate/repoint your My Documents, My Video, My Pictures, Downloads etc over to it:

How to Move Windows 7 Personal Folders Like My Documents to Another Drive

Is your C:\ drive getting crowded? Would you like to move some things to another drive or partition to free up space? Maybe it’s one of the personal system folders like My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos or the Download folder that is taking up a lot of space. If you have another partition or...

www.techsupportalert.com

When you install new software, install it to D:

You can also move your steam library: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129