Cleaning OS from old C: drive that now only serves data

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The word “from” should follow OS in the title.

When I moved my OS to a Solid State Drive, I retained the ability to swap cables and boot into the old 1 G hard drive. Because that one had all of my working files on it, I renamed it Data disk and just left Windows and all the old program files that were duplicates of the newly installed versions on the new C:.

Now I want the space, but getting rid of things is non-trivial. Removing some program folders requires the blessing of “Trusted installer.” I would like to just delete the Windows, Program, and Program (x86) folders but i suspect the evil gremlins from Microsoft would not respond quietly.

Any suggestions?

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Take all your “working files” off the old drive and format it.

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The “My Pictures” folder and “My music” folder were created by W7 on the old boot drive that is now a data drive. I have too many pictures and used Music for some of them (a lot). Both folders were copied to a back-up drive where they will remain as the working back-ups. After I deleted and formatted the data volume, I copied them back. I want to call “Pictures” Images and “Music” Pictures but I don’t seem to be able to reliably rename either of these OS created folders.

Is there a way to do this (rename them for all apps)?

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Duuuhhhh!

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You can open disk manager from the new SSD with both drives connected and simply delete and format the old drive. Create a logical drive and voila use it for data.

Use the approved methodto move all your data to the newly formatted drive.

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These are System Folders and are not easily able to be renamed. Perhaps someone has a method. If you are just talking about on the data drive it might be possible, but the pointers to these folders that are still on the C Drive cannot be changed.

Did you change the pointers to this data in the OS? This allows the OS to find these folders when you click on the folders on the C Drive. The OS automatically points to that data drive. This is where that Approved Method I mentioned above will help. All the Library folders will point to the data drive.

My system has had a separate data drive right along. When I Custom Installed Win 8 I simply used that method to point to the already existing folders on the data drive and I was back in business.

32568-PointersToDataDrive

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Hi, In windows 8 the old windows files can be deleted using cleanmgr . Just type it in at the bottom of the start menu. it asks which drive? what do you want to clean? I have just recently taken out “Windows Old. files from my f drive. love Malcolm

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Hi, In windows 8 the old windows files can be deleted using cleanmgr . Just type it in at the bottom of the start menu. it asks which drive? what do you want to clean? I have just recently taken out “Windows Old. files from my f drive. love Malcolm

I believe the OP has said he is running win 7 not win 8 so actions for win 8 are not applicable to him.

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