Help!! Computer Storage Problem

[kaypony]

I have a wee problem and I know this isnt a computer forum but there are a lot of knowledgable people out there that could probably help me with this. I bought a Sony Vaio laptop around a year ago. I take a lot of photos and have a lot of photos stored on my computer (and backed up on a portable HD too). When I bought the laptop I paid a bit more so I would have what I was told was quite a large hard-drive. It is 120gb. I recently had a hardware failure but our computer technician retrieved all the data and fixed the computer. All was working well. Today I'm uploading around 6gb worth of photos from the weekend and converted from Raw--> jpeg. I get a message on my taskbar saying my C drive is nearly full. Eeek! So I go my computer, c drive and look at how full it is. It says its 46gb full and has around 700mb left. As I upload 700 becomes 200mb and I have to stop converting the files for now. My question is, what is the C drive? Why does it say it's full when I thought I had plenty of space left? What can I do to fix this problem? Could it be anything to do with my hardware failing?
Any help is very much appreciated :)

[kaypony]

P.S A lot of the 6gb worth of photos will be deleted once I've sussed out which are keepers.

[Jon]

C: is your main hard drive, but if it's full with 46 GB of files look at your "My Computer" and see if there's a "D:" drive as well. Also right-click on the drive, choose "Properties", "Hardware", then the disk drive, and "Properties" again. Then choose "Volumes" and see if there's any unallocated or unused space listed.

[Ephemeral]

Check if you have many things in your recycle bin, if so, then maybe think about emptying that.

[kaypony]

Thanks for the suggestions. Ok so I deleted one photo editing programme I didnt need, my recycle bin and have now manage to upload my photos. I have 2.02gb free space on C drive, and 58.6 gb free space on a drive. But really 2.02gb is only going to last one more upload of photos before it clogs up again and I have to find something to delete. What is the difference between d and c drives?
Jon, I did as you suggested and there didnt seem to be anything listed. It was just little dashes next to each of the titles.

[Ephemeral]

Traditionally the C: drive is where your Windows and programs are stored. It's general good practice to store you data on a different drive. This means that it's possible to re-install your Windows without losing your data.

If you don't have another hard disk, then D: is usually your DVD/CD drive. If your DVD/CD drive is drive E: then the D: drive could either be a seperate physical hard disk, or you only have 1 physical hard disk in your computer, but it has been "partitioned" into to "logical" drives. If your D: Drive is your DVD/CD drive then you are out of hard disk space and need to think about getting more.

To complicate matters more, your physical HD could have been partitioned into 2 logical drives, but the 2nd logical drive wasn't put into use. This could explain why you have a 120gb physical HD, but only have 40gb'ish C: Drive. In this siutation you have to go to "Manage" your computer and actualy put that unused 56gb'ish partion to use, I think there was instructions above.

(Found this image on the web)
http://Ephemeral.smugmug.com/photos/214953719-L.gif
Notice that in this example there is 6.63 GB unallocated? See if you have anything similar.

If you have lots of space spare on the D: drive then I would suggest moving your data, photos, word docs, email archive, things you want to keep, in that drive.

It is good practice to leave at least 2-4 gb on your C: drive as windows will inevitably need that space to store stuff. Though I would suggest you move all none data stuff from your C: Drive, space permitting.

If you still don't have enough space then you might need to think about external storage.

[Flint666]

if you want to move all your files to the 58gig drive an easy way to do this is

1. create a folder on the new drive (your 58gig drive) call it data or somthing 9 it really dos'nt matter what.

2. "right Click " on "my documents" and select properties
then from the target tab

3.select "Move" and browse to the folder you created on the 58gig drive

4 click apply and agree to move all files and folders

this should free you up come space on the c: drive and also any new files you transfer onto the pc will be stored in the new location

Hope that helps

Andy

[cfcRebel]

......I was told was quite a large hard-drive. It is 120gb. I recently had a hardware failure but our computer technician retrieved all the data and fixed the computer. When you said the technician fixed the problem, was it the 120Gb hard disc that failed? Did he swap it with a new hard disc with much smaller capacity which explains why you now only have close to 50Gb of space?

[kaypony]

When you said the technician fixed the problem, was it the 120Gb hard disc that failed? Did he swap it with a new hard disc with much smaller capacity which explains why you now only have close to 50Gb of space?
Nope, he fixed the original hard drive and didnt replace it. I thought that could be the problem but then realised he did fix the original.

[kaypony]

if you want to move all your files to the 58gig drive an easy way to do this is

1. create a folder on the new drive (your 58gig drive) call it data or somthing 9 it really dos'nt matter what.

2. "right Click " on "my documents" and select properties
then from the target tab

3.select "Move" and browse to the folder you created on the 58gig drive

4 click apply and agree to move all files and folders

this should free you up come space on the c: drive and also any new files you transfer onto the pc will be stored in the new location

Hope that helps

Andy

Thanks Andy, that seems like great advice. I'll try it a bit later :)

[kaypony]

Traditionally the C: drive is where your Windows and programs are stored. It's general good practice to store you data on a different drive. This means that it's possible to re-install your Windows without losing your data.

If you don't have another hard disk, then D: is usually your DVD/CD drive. If your DVD/CD drive is drive E: then the D: drive could either be a seperate physical hard disk, or you only have 1 physical hard disk in your computer, but it has been "partitioned" into to "logical" drives. If your D: Drive is your DVD/CD drive then you are out of hard disk space and need to think about getting more.

To complicate matters more, your physical HD could have been partitioned into 2 logical drives, but the 2nd logical drive wasn't put into use. This could explain why you have a 120gb physical HD, but only have 40gb'ish C: Drive. In this siutation you have to go to "Manage" your computer and actualy put that unused 56gb'ish partion to use, I think there was instructions above.

(Found this image on the web)
http://Ephemeral.smugmug.com/photos/214953719-L.gif
Notice that in this example there is 6.63 GB unallocated? See if you have anything similar.

If you have lots of space spare on the D: drive then I would suggest moving your data, photos, word docs, email archive, things you want to keep, in that drive.

It is good practice to leave at least 2-4 gb on your C: drive as windows will inevitably need that space to store stuff. Though I would suggest you move all none data stuff from your C: Drive, space permitting.

If you still don't have enough space then you might need to think about external storage.
Wow, thanks for the help. I knew there would be people that could offer advice on here. Do you agree with what Andy has suggested I do? And how do I get to computer management?

[Jon]

Computer Management will be under "Administrative Tools", either in your Programs or Control Panel (Settings).

[Flint666]

To get to computer managment you can right click on my computer and instead of selecting properties select manage.

or you can goto
Start>Settings>Control Pannel >Administrative Tools>Computer Managment.

I dont know much about photography but I know computers

Hope this helps

Andy

[kaypony]

Thanks for the hints, I found computer management. I did a Print screen of what I found. Hints/ suggestions please!

[Jon]

The tech split your disk up into 3 parts. The recovery partition (you need in case of software problems) and C: and D: drives. You've got 58 GB of disk space sitting out there under the tag D:\. Probably all empty. Store your data there. Makes backing up neater.

[kaypony]

Great. And do you suggest I move data from c: to d: as well? Thanks heaps for the help everyone :)

[simwells]

Great. And do you suggest I move data from c: to d: as well? Thanks heaps for the help everyone :)

Yep programs and system files in C, data and all files in D

[kaypony]

Thank you!!!!!! Everyone has been such a help, and hopefully the problem should be solved (for awhile anyway)
Will post later once I actually follow through on above instructions (probably in next study break)

[Flint666]

if your pics and other data all live in your my documents folder just move the whole "my documents" folder over to the D: drive

the other advantage of doing it that way is none of your program defaults will need changing as in things that automatically pick "My Pictures" will still pick "My Pictures" and save there it's a tidy way to do things

leave any program files and system files on the C: drive as they tend to not like being moved.

[Ephemeral]

Sweet, another 56Gb of space waiting to be used. Glad you are sorted out.

[b1gdaddy]

I suggest you copy data, verify it has copied & then delete from original location. Belt & braces ftw ;)

[kaypony]

if you want to move all your files to the 58gig drive an easy way to do this is

1. create a folder on the new drive (your 58gig drive) call it data or somthing 9 it really dos'nt matter what.

2. "right Click " on "my documents" and select properties
then from the target tab

3.select "Move" and browse to the folder you created on the 58gig drive

4 click apply and agree to move all files and folders

this should free you up come space on the c: drive and also any new files you transfer onto the pc will be stored in the new location

Hope that helps

Andy
Hey, I tried doing this. I got to my documents => properties but i couldnt find the target tab or anything to do with moving. Does everyone suggest I just copy and paste? It says it will take 69 minutes to do this. Is it the most safe and effective way of doing it?

[Flint666]

Hmmm. that's strange .

You can do the same thing by going to "Computer managment">Local Users and groups> Users

then find your username

double click your user

goto profile tab

it will say local path and then have a blank box

in the box type D:\data if thats what you called your new folder on the D: drive

click apply then click ok

that should work

Andy

( and yes you could copy and paste your documents across )

[Ephemeral]

Do you not see this:

http://Ephemeral.smugmug.com/photos/215473675-L.jpg

[kaypony]

Do you not see this:

http://Ephemeral.smugmug.com/photos/215473675-L.jpg
Nope I just have General and Sharing. A little odd huh?

[Jon]

Try right-clicking on "My Documents" on your desktop, not in "My Computer" and see if you get the "Target folder location" option.

[kaypony]

Got it! Thankyou :) Will try doing the big shift now :)

[kaypony]

Right everything is on the big move. Will post again when its finished (hopefully sucessfully :))

[kaypony]

EEk. It got half way and stopped as it said it could not move a folder called birds as it was being used by another person/programme. I didnt have anything else open, so that was a little odd. I am now copying and pasting the rest over. Hopefully it works OK.

[kaypony]

Done. But because I had to copy and paste the second half, I now want to delete the half that I have two copies of on the c-drive. This would be fine apart from the fact it comes up with this message that says something about the fact that files are being shared and if I delete them, they will be deleted all together and cannot be shared. Is this in reference to the d drive where the copies of the files now live? So I clicked delete anyway and figured I could always get them out of recycle bin. Then comes a message that says the folder contains names too big for the recycle bin, would I like to delete everything with too longer file name? I click no. But I dont really want 15-20 gb worth of crap sitting on my c drive if I've already got it copied!

[Flint666]

????
try deleting one folder at a time untill you find out which folders contain the files with the long names. least that will get rid of some of it then we can work out the rest once we know what files are causing the problems.

worst case is I could remote session onto your pc (with your permission) and see if i can figure it out (i say worsted case as theres a 12 hour time diffrence between the uk and NZ)

Andy

[kaypony]

Ok, that sounds like a good idea. I'll try the deleteing one folder at a time idea. I've just moved households from Uni back to my hometown so I may not get a chance until tomorrow morning to play. Thanks again. People on here are AMAZING.

[kaypony]

I just went through folder by folder and deleted everything and it didnt seem to have a problem. So now all my documents (incl. my pictures) is on d: drive and c: drive has considerably more space. I'll leave things in my recycle bin for a couple of weeks to make sure I havent deleted anything vital. Thanks again for your help, it was much appreciated.