my c drive has a red line through it

my c drive is low on space and a red line is running through it , the d drive has plenty of free space as though they ae reversed c and d what can i do to fix this vista home basic with IE ( insoerion 531 Dell PC

If you right click on each partition and go to Properties, it'll tell you how much is used and how much is available on each drive. Can you post that please?

Jan2011 wrote:

If you right click on each partition and go to Properties, it'll tell you how much is used and how much is available on each drive. Can you post that please?

That works. Seems you're storing all your documents on the C drive. I believe the manufacturer wanted you to use the D partition for your data.

I assume you're storing files in your My Documents folder. Let's try to move that. Click on the Start button and then right-click on My Documents and select Properties. If there's no My Documents in your start menu then right click on the My Documents icon on your desktop instead.

When you've clicked on properties, select "Move" and then navigate to your D: drive. Select the drive letter and then click "Make New Folder." Enter "My Documents" as the folder name and hit Enter and then OK. Windows will then ask you whether you want to move your documents; click Yes.

You may have to do the same with My Pictures and My Music.

Note: I stole some of these instructions from another site. I don't have a Vista machine to test it out on. I think this will work.

I have tried to move the documents to d drive and there wasnt anything in the document files properties before I moved them so I made a scree shot because you mentioned picture or music, and they also do not have any filesin them and i went in to location and they point to the d drive , yet the c drive seems to have a copy of some of the same files that are in the D drive here is a screen shot, check out Movie Maker both drives have it? Im really con fused , hope you can help me or can i just use my computer as it? how ever drive C is red lined already but has 90 gb and still works .?

Your user files are typically stored in your user name under the USER folder. I see there is one USER folder in C. Is there another in D?

Open the USER folder and find your account. How much space is being used?

I see 3 users in d drive , and 2 in C drive how ever I think it asked me for a pass word once and I made the mistake of installing it twice , but I dont know how it got into public ,what should I do next ?

You have two ronplanes folders: one in C and one in D. You have to figure out which one you're using. How big are each of these?

If you right-click your Documents folder, you should be able to get to properties to find out where the active user documents are.

this one screen shot, Ill get another in a minute thank you

here are the two drives c and d I noticed one uses 400 MB

I'm having a hard time seeing the screen shots. It's not your fault. My video card is not too good.

Can you tell me how much space the ronplanes folder is using on each partition? I suspect the one on C is pretty large compared to the one on D.

on the very top of each photo you can enlarge it its a very small yellow line that says you can enlarge this image, I will give you the size of drive C then Drive D C=90.5 MB free of 9.99 GB
D=179 GB free of 222 GB PLEASE EXCUSE ME THIS IS THE TOTAL OF EACH DRIVE , NOW i WILL CHEK THE RONPLANES PART THAT YOU NEED.

RONPLANES ON THE c DRIVE IS ZERO 0 bytes

RONPLANES ON THE D DRIVE IS 319 MB

With only 319 MB on the ronplanes directory, it looks like you don't have a lot of anything on your computer. My guess is that you don't have any pictures or music. If you do, there aren't many.

The problem is that your C drive is only 10 GB. That's where your system files live. As Windows gets updated, more files are placed in that partition. I would assume that when you install programs, they are also being placed on the C drive.

Would could use a program like Acronis' Disk Director to resize your partitions. Personally, I don't see the need for the casual user to have more than one partition on a drive. So I would make one partition as large as possible. So you'd have to back up your D drive files, and resize C to as large as you can, and then restore the D files back to C.

That's a bit involved. Something else you can do, check to see the sizes of the Program Files folder on both the C and D drives. If the one on C is large compared to the one on D, then uninstall the programs on the C drive and reinstall them onto the D drive.
Caution: Don't just delete the folders, use the Program and Features Control Panel to uninstall them.

When you reinstall the applications, they will ask you where to install them. Navigate to the D drive.

That's a bit involved. Something else you can do, check to see the sizes of the Program Files folder on both the C and D drives. If the one on C is large compared to the one on D, then uninstall the programs on the C drive and reinstall them onto the D drive. [ this is easyer for me but once i uninstall it from drive c how do i find it to put on drive d ? can I jusy drag and drop ,or cut and paste from c to d ?

i found this disk management how ever I do not have a clue how to use it with out really causing a major problem , at least my computer is some how working

Look at your post #5. In that shot, you can see the Program Files directory on the D drive. If you right-click and go to Properties, you'll see how much disk space it's using.

Now go to the C drive and see if there's a Program Files directory in there. If there is, see how much space it's using.

Also list the folders in each. You can take screen shots.

ok heres d drive then c drive .it looks like duplicates ?

It looks pretty good to me. I don't think you can move those Windows programs from C to D, but I'm not sure.

You can try deleting temp and Sytem Restore files. Here's a link:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Delete-files-using-Disk-Cleanup

I think even with the cleanup, it may only be a temporary fix because Windows updates will start filling it up again.

I have done that , how ever it didnt help much , what about noving the duplicated files on c to a flash drive as a back up ,?

What duplicated files are you talking abou?

Jan2011 wrote:

What duplicated files are you talking abou?

the one I found for example is movie maker its a large file

Movie Maker is part of Vista, you can't uninstall it. Well, I guess you could delete the folder but it might bite you in the rear end. You really don't want to mess with the operating system files.

I wouldn't mess with those other items in the C Program Files directory either. I just don't know what the consequences would be.

Maybe someone here knows of a free disk repartition app. I think that's what you need to do.

Jan2011 wrote:

Movie Maker is part of Vista, you can't uninstall it. Well, I guess you could delete the folder but it might bite you in the rear end. You really don't want to mess with the operating system files.

I wouldn't mess with those other items in the C Program Files directory either. I just don't know what the consequences would be.

Maybe someone here knows of a free disk repartition app. I think that's what you need to do.

I appriciate all the foot work you have done for me , I learned a lot from yo and Ill check out a free disk partiotion app

I'll be following to see what others have to say about this. I can't believe you are alone with this problem.

Jan2011 wrote:

I'll be following to see what others have to say about this. I can't believe you are alone with this problem.

I think its such a touchy area to esolve the problem that no one has a real answer, it probably has to be like a take over my computer by the manufacturer in which Im well off the warrantee ,how ever I found out that windows vista has a free program in the sytem itself in the comtrol panel , how ever it is very complicated to me a novice, here is a site just o give you an idea how to use it,thanks again http://www.lytebyte.com/2007/02/19/how-to-partition-in-windows-vista-extend-and-shrink/

How about that! I didn't know that you could do that in Vista. I've always used Disk Director.

So what you have to do is to shrink the D partition to free up space that can then be added to the C partition. Once there is some free (unallocated) space available, use that to extend the C partition. Try 20 GB.

Jan2011 wrote:

How about that! I didn't know that you could do that in Vista. I've always used Disk Director.

So what you have to do is to shrink the D partition to free up space that can then be added to the C partition. Once there is some free (unallocated) space available, use that to extend the C partition. Try 20 GB.

wouldnt I have to shrink the C first, thats the drive with low space ?

nope. D has lots of extra space that's not being used. Shrink D by 20 GB. Then you will have 20 GB of unallocated space. It's unallocated because it's not being used by either C or D.

Now, C needs the extra space because it's full. Expand that C into the unallocated space.

Think of it as C and D are rooms in a house. C is a small rooom full of furniture. C is a large room with lots of space that isn't being used. So to make the C room larger, you're going to make the D room smaller by moving a wall. Once the room is made smaller by moving the wall, the C room can use the space that was once in the D room.

Jan2011 wrote:

nope. D has lots of extra space that's not being used. Shrink D by 20 GB. Then you will have 20 GB of unallocated space. It's unallocated because it's not being used by either C or D.

Now, C needs the extra space because it's full. Expand that C into the unallocated space.

Think of it as C and D are rooms in a house. C is a small rooom full of furniture. C is a large room with lots of space that isn't being used. So to make the C room larger, you're going to make the D room smaller by moving a wall. Once the room is made smaller by moving the wall, the C room can use the space that was once in the D room.

Ok now that I can shrink the D drive, how to I use that to extend the C partition.. I never extended a partiton ? and when I do this will this free up the C drive to make the red line go away?

Well, it's going to take some work. You'll have to read the link you posted:

http://www.lytebyte.com/2007/02/19/how-to-partition-in-windows-vista-extend-and-shrink/

Follow the instructions to shrink a partition and then the instructions to extend a partition.

It's a bit involved, but it is straightforward.

Jan2011 wrote:

Well, it's going to take some work. You'll have to read the link you posted:

http://www.lytebyte.com/2007/02/19/how-to-partition-in-windows-vista-extend-and-shrink/

Follow the instructions to shrink a partition and then the instructions to extend a partition.

It's a bit involved, but it is straightforward.

ok thank you again foe al your help