My @%*%@#$ hard drive

I need the advice from folks about my hard drive. I've been fighting with it for about a year now and I've just about had it.
I have a Sony Vaio and I haven't had a lick of trouble with it except for the hard drive. It is a 120Ghz drive that has been partitioned in to a C and D drive. The C drive is only 15 gig and it is full. I've done everything I can to clean it up and I can't get more than about 1 gig free. I don't even have enough space to defrag it. There are a ton of programs that I don't use but I can't delete them. The add/remove programs don't give me the remove button for them. I think there is something missing in the registry or something.
Any ideas on how I can fix this dang thing? I would like to put a new bigger hard drive in it but I don't know what I'm doing.
Any ideas?

why do you have it partitioned?

ColoradoXJ13 said:

why do you have it partitioned?

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It was partitioned at the factory. I don't understand why it was and why 15 gig???

If you don't have the option to remove a program I would guess that you are not logged in with an administrative level account. I would try that first. To free up extra space make sure you clean out the user temp directories as well as the system ones. The disk cleanup wizard often doesn't clean these out and nobody knows about them.

Click Start, then Run and enter the following, then click OK:

%userprofile%\local settings\temp

Make sure you have no programs open and then delete everything in there. If you have multiple user accounts that get used, the directory for each one would be

c:\documents and settings\username\local settings\temp

where username is the name of the users. To see the local settings directory you will need to turn on hidden files and folders if you haven't already. Hope that helps a bit.

You might consider purchasing a partitioning program that will change the size of them. They are pretty standard programs. I have used Partition Manager with success. How much space is used on the D partition? How much available space overall?

Definitely repartition it, or remove the partitions altogether, you don't need it. There are also uninstall programs out there like "Your Uninstaller" that will help remove stubborn proggies... alternatively you can climb to the roof of your house and throw it to the street, remembering never to buy a Sony computer ever again (as per my experience).

first don't buy a partitioner. windows comes with one and there are tons of free partitioners out there. Next, my advice would be to backup important data, and reformat the whole thing to 1 partition like you want it and re-install windows.

Also, if you don't see programs in the remove programs window, to free up space you can just got to My Computer > C: > Program Files... then delete folders of whatever programs you don't want/use anymore.

I recommend by a cheap external harddrive, backing up all your important files, then reinstalling windows and wiping everything.

I have a Dell with 2 - 250 GB HDs. They've crashed and been changed out twice. I lost everything...twice.

Now I use external HDs to hold my info.

I know there's a lot of us IT nerds around here so maybe they can backup (or debunk) my theory, but from what I've seen in many a drive crash, it is only the OS (windows) drive that dies suddenly. I used to do the whole partition A-Z crap to "organize" my stuff. Now I just use one small (80gb) drive for my os, installed programs and any other stuff that can be easily replaced, and a separate 500gb drive for all my documents, pics, music and other crap that I would just hate to loose. I've been using a system like this for many years now and I've yet to lose anything important even when my drive has crashed. I dunno if windows just increases the chances of crashing, but that's been my experience... ok, I'm done...

Windows (and MS DOS before) does an incredible amount of thrashing on the system files. Why it moves things around so much has always been a mystery to me, but the results are: slower operation as time goes by, which drives the need to de-frag, which drives crashes. MS actually recommended doing re-installs every year because they can't keep the file system clean.

I've been running a Linux system for five years and haven't needed to de-frag once. In my last job, we never de-fragged a single Solaris or Linux box and we had hundreds of them. Drive failures were just that, hardware burnouts, mainly motor failures after 3-4 years.

Don't get me wrong, I made my living in the 80's fixing MS problems. Bailed at 3.51

Get and external drive, backup & if you have the install disks, get a clean start. Otherwise, re-partition.

david_42 said:

...Get and external drive, backup & if you have the install disks, get a clean start. Otherwise, re-partition.

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I think the Sony machines only come with those stupid 'recovery' CD's instead of a vanilla XP disk so that may restore the original partition scheme. I haven't touched a Sony machine since they first came out though so my information may be out of date.

Edit: I should mention, get the external drive and backup regardless of any other issues. Backup, backup, backup!

I don't trust a HD beyond 3 years.
Just my theory...
They increased the platter capacity from 10gb to 120gb (etc) without changing any other design changes or firmware changes. Then they ramped up production.

Like putting a bigger and bigger engine on the same chassis.

bradsul said:

I think the Sony machines only come with those stupid 'recovery' CD's instead of a vanilla XP disk so that may restore the original partition scheme.

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Yeah, I cringe when someone brings me a Sony laptop to fix. They have tons of proprietary crap that keeps you from doing things the easy way...

I second (third? fourth?) the recommendation to backup your important files, reformat/repartition the drive and reinstall Windows. It's always best to blow everything away and start over with a clean slate - however since this can be problematic with the Vaio, your next best bet would be to get a partitioning application (I use Partition Magic) and re-partition your drive so it's all one volume.

HTH

olllllo said:

Like putting a bigger and bigger engine on the same chassis.

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Nothing wrong with that, just means you get a faster and faster car. Now if you can actually get the power to the pavement though....

scottthorn said:

Yeah, I cringe when someone brings me a Sony laptop to fix. They have tons of proprietary crap that keeps you from doing things the easy way...

I second (third? fourth?) the recommendation to backup your important files, reformat/repartition the drive and reinstall Windows. It's always best to blow everything away and start over with a clean slate - however since this can be problematic with the Vaio, your next best bet would be to get a partitioning application (I use Partition Magic) and re-partition your drive so it's all one volume.

HTH

Click to expand...

I'll second this. Clean install is nice way of doing that but if you feel that is too much work, invest in Partition Magic. This will let you do a non destructive resizing of the partitions so you will not have to wipe out everything and start over.

Rich, start fresh. Re-install xp and it will give you the option to nuke the partition. Nuke it and have only a c-drive. You will have much more flexibility then.

knipknup said:

Rich, start fresh. Re-install xp and it will give you the option to nuke the partition. Nuke it and have only a c-drive. You will have much more flexibility then.

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My biggest problem is that I don't have the XP disks. My computer didn't come with them. Also, is there a way to save what I have now so after the drive is formatted everything will look the same?
I like the idea of formatting the hard drive and getting the junk off of it that I never use.
By the way... Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Hmmm, it should have come with restore disks. Getting it to look the same is gonna be difficult. When I re-format mine, I just nuke it all and re-install. That may be more than you really want to deal with. If you don't mind spending a few bucks, Best Buy has a geek squad, and they will re-set it all up. They may even do a backup and restore of data files. I think it is around $100. I would do it for you but I won't be in CO for a few months.

RichBrewer said:

My biggest problem is that I don't have the XP disks. My computer didn't come with them. Also, is there a way to save what I have now so after the drive is formatted everything will look the same?
I like the idea of formatting the hard drive and getting the junk off of it that I never use.
By the way... Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Click to expand...

The easiest solution to get it looking mostly the same would be to use the Files and Settings Transfer wizard. You run it once as the 'old computer' before you reinstall, then again as the 'new computer' after you reinstall. It will cover a vast majority of the windows options and even a number of third party applications and your data (though this does NOT replace a proper backup).

You would still need an external drive or network location to copy a large amount of data to however.

bradsul said:

The easiest solution to get it looking mostly the same would be to use the Files and Settings Transfer wizard. You run it once as the 'old computer' before you reinstall, then again as the 'new computer' after you reinstall. It will cover a vast majority of the windows options and even a number of third party applications and your data (though this does NOT replace a proper backup).

You would still need an external drive or network location to copy a large amount of data to however.

Click to expand...

I've got a 250gig external HD so that shouldn't be a problem.

Unless your data is backed up to an external hard drive, or burned to disc do not delete partitions or reinstall XP.

Deleting partitions will cause you lose all data on that partition.

Reinstalling XP can result in your Documents and Settings folders being deleted, meaning that Pictures, documents,etc could be lost.

How much free space do you have available on your D: drive?

You need to resize (not delete) your D drive. By resizing your D: partition you will then add that space to your C: partition.

Most partition programs (PartionMagic and the likes) cost money. A free program, but not always easy to use, is Boot-IT NG.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

No matter what action you take, I would purchase an external hard drive and backup everything before doing anything involving resizing/deleting/reinstalling.

I've got about 90 GB on the D drive and 155 GB on my external.
Next question is how do I back up? Just click and drag or is there more to it?

RichBrewer said:

I've got about 90 GB on the D drive and 155 GB on my external.
Next question is how do I back up? Just click and drag or is there more to it?

Click to expand...

http://www.freebyte.com/fbbackup/

How much total data do you have to backup?

Your partitions:
C: 15GB/xx free
D: xxGB/90GB free

Fill in the xx's

HarvInSTL said:

http://www.freebyte.com/fbbackup/

How much total data do you have to backup?

Your partitions:
C: 15GB/xx free
D: xxGB/90GB free

Fill in the xx's

Click to expand...

I've got about 14.3 GB used up on the C drive but some of that data can be deleted. I just don't want the computer performance to suffer because I deleted needed files in registries and stuff like that.
Can you tell that I don't know too much about computers?.

Use Partion Magic to make it one partion and it will do this with out losing any of your info.....
Keith
Technology Support Specialist,
A+,MCP

RichBrewer said:

I've got about 14.3 GB used up on the C drive but some of that data can be deleted. I just don't want the computer performance to suffer because I deleted needed files in registries and stuff like that.
Can you tell that I don't know too much about computers?.

Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with not knowing alot about computers. Hell I don't know too much about brewing!

I just want to make sure you get a good backup of your pictures/documents/thesis/etc before you proceed. That way your next post isn't something along the lines of "$&@#@& I just lost all my data!!!"

Personally I prefer two seperate partitions, because that way if I want to do a reinstall of XP all I do is move what i want to keep to the other partition, boot off the XP cd and wipe the "System" partition the whole time leaving my "Data" partition alone.

You really have two approaches to this.

1.) Backup data, resize the partitions (Resizing includes merging the D partition into the C partition)
2.) Backup data, delete all partitions and reinstall using System Restore discs.

Option #1 will be the easiest and won't require you to reinstall all your applications, email accounts,etc.

I can't count how many times people have backed up their pictures and documents, but then proceeded to forget to backup thier favorites/email files & address books/etc.

Option #2 will prolly give you a decent performance boost because you would be starting with a fresh install of XP. I haven't done a system restore on a Vaio in a couple years but if it doesn't give you the option to increase the partition sizes during reinstall Boot-IT NG would let you do it after the system restore completes.

stout55 said:

Use Partion Magic to make it one partion and it will do this with out losing any of your info.....
Keith
Technology Support Specialist,
A+,MCP

Click to expand...

I'd still recommend backing up his data first. I've seen Boot-IT NG lose data before, as has Partition Magic. Messing with partitions and MBT's without a valid/verified backup is like brewing with unsterile equipment.

Sooner or later it will catch up to you.

While I'm not proud of this I have purchased an external hard drive at BestBuy, used it for my data backup, and after DBAN'ing the drive returned a week later when I was done.

Also why did you list your title and certs?

If you want to get it exactly as is then your easiest solution is to buy Acronis True Image Home version. Itll run you about $50 though. It can make an exact image of your drive contents. If you choose to go this route I can walk you through it step by step but I wont waste the time typing it all out for now. If you use this program you can make the image of the C drive and save it to your external drive. Copy the contents of the D drive to the external as well (provided it all fits). Now you can boot from an XP CD to repartition the drives. Wipe out all the partitions and create one big one. Then restore your image you created and Windows will be back to how it was with different partition sizes. Then copy your data you had on D to wherever you want it to be stored. I know you said you do not have an XP CD, but you can borrow one from a friend, or I could even mail you a copy of one. As long as you do not use any one elses CD key, it is legal.

Lots of great ideas. I will have to read these all again and decide what to do. I will probably need help when I do it.
Thanks everyone.