Windows 8.1 and Toshiba, disc partition

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I have Windows 8.1 on Toshiba laptop. I had the HDD partitioned in 2 when I got it from Best Buy. All Programs are on C and all files are on F after the 2 CD drives. Anyway, last night I started getting the message about no more space on drive. When I checked with C drive it was down to just a few mbs. The last time I checked it wasn’t nearly that full and I don’t have big programs other than Office 13 and Paint Shop Pro. I can’t figure what happened with the space. Today I thought I would repartition the C drive a little bigger to get space to work with. I tried the Disk Management tool but it will shrink a partition but doesn’t seem to be able to expand one. I did shrink the F drive and had the space but couldn’t get the increase part to work. I downloaded a free app called AOMEI Partition but couldn’t get that to work either. Any ideas? Thanks
O

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A couple of other things that can take up space is Temporary Internet Files and the TEMP Folder. Clean the TIFs in Control Panel, Internet Options and use Windows + R with %temp% and delete everything, a few won’t delete but they are small. If you do a lot of downloads look in your Downloads Folder and move what you don’t need right away onto DVDs or an External USB drive, always good to have archived files.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I will check all these points in the morning. Thanks to both of you.

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One thing I overlooked, can truthfully say I have never seen a Notebook/Laptop with 2 Optical drives. Have only see a few with 2 HDDs and they were both 17.3″ models, an HP and a Dell Studio.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I went through all the processes recommended last night and got 8gb back. Not much, but it gives a little working room. I don’t know whether 8 needs the 20% space as XP and other did. Question on TIFs in Control Panel? What I am looking for there?

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Berton, I have one drive built in and on on usb and it recognizes both of them before the second partition.

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Question on TIFs in Control Panel?

Open the Internet Options item and on the General tab are some choices. I usually only delete the Temporary Internet Files and keep the others unless having problems, cookies contain information Web sites use to know you have been there before and may retain log-in information.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I’d like to see a screen shot of your disk management widows please. This way I can get a visual on the partition situation. The thing to remember with expanding and shrinking partitions is that it runs left to right on the expand and right to left on the merge back.

Example; 1 physical HDD 1TB is C drive, partitioned to C (500GB) and D (500GB)….the partitions are moving left to right and using the available assigned letter. Partition D drive – (250GB) to E drive (250GB). Now to merge a partition….you have to start at right, in this exampe E back to D and so on. You can’t move E to C….windows wont let you nor will any 3rd party partitioning software.

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I can’t find the my computer icon and can’t remember how to get there otherwise

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Disk Management and screen shots.
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//168548-Shrinking-SSD?p=999466#post999466

cheers, Paul

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I found the disk management tool.40536-diskmanagement-screen
I have created space at the end of F drive, but don’t know how to get that on C

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Open File Explorer and right-click the Computer/This PC/My PC icon in the list on the left.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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for some reason the My PC icon is missing, but I did find the Disc Management tool, which is what is important now.

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When I click on C, it shows i can shrink the volume but the extend is grayed out. I am wondering if the fact that the 97 GB is to the right of F, is why it isn’t accessible to C. I am stuck right now, can’t see how to accomplish this. Thanks

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RE: your #15 post, It’s F: that’s the problem, you can Extend the F: to the 97GB but it’s blocking access to do it with C:. I’d save any data on F:, delete the partition, extend C: into part of the resultant space then create a new F: in what remains. There may be other ways to accomplish the same result but I described what I have done in the past.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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OK, I decided to go for it. Moved the excess back to F, deleted F, and expanded C by 100GB and created a new F. Tomorrow I will reload my files to F. I learned a lot today. Thanks for all the input. I will keep looking for the reason C got so big, but for now I have a workable computer.

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oldgeezer75,

As you can see from your DiskMgmt screenshot, the problem is the unallocated space you freed up is not adjacent to your C: partition, so DiskMgmt cannot expand into it. In a nutshell, the result you’re trying to achieve requires three steps: first shrink the F partition (which you’ve now done), then slide the F partition in its entirety to the right so the unallocated space is behind the C partition instead of the F: partition, then expand the C partition into the now adjacent space.

As you’re discovering, DiskMgmt is a limited tool for doing what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s major limitation is it cannot move the beginning of any partition. It can shrink or expand the back end of a partition (provided there’s available space), but it cannot move the beginning of the partition. Thus, it cannot do step 2 of the above three steps because that would entail moving the beginning of F to the right.

There are a number of free, third-party partition management tools that can do what you want–among them the excellent and oft-recommended MiniTool Partition Wizard. However, I note that you only have about 30GB of used space on your F partition, so to avoid having to download, install and learn a new tool I would follow Berton’s advice and backup everything on your F partition, delete the partition, expand C as desired, then recreate F anew and restore your backed up files. That way, you can simply use DiskMgmt, with which you’ve already become familiar.

That said, however, and before you go through all that trouble, I would question what’s using all your space on C. Over 300GB is a lot if your data is really supposed to be on F. You said, “I had the HDD partitioned in 2 when I got it from Best Buy. All Programs are on C and all files are on F.” My guess is they partitioned it but did not redirect your data to F, so although you now have a second partition your user data is still accumulating on C, not F. That could account for why C is so full. As a quick check, right-click C:Users{yourname} and select “Properties”. How large is it? If it’s nearly 300GB, then all your data–music, pictures, everything–is still going to C.

If that is not what you wanted, then let us know before we go any further. If that’s the case, then you do not want to expand C, you instead want to merely move all your user data from C to F.

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I checked the User file and it only 5.5 GB. I haven’t yet found any huge files on C. I have just been backing up my F drive and the plan at the moment is to delete the F partition, put space in C, so I at least have good working space and create a new F partition. I am thinking I should return the space I took from F back to it, so C will have access to the remaining space without further juggling. Please let me have feedback on this. I am not going to do this until tomorrow until I am fresh and sharper.

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I checked the User file and it only 5.5 GB.[/quote]
Hmm, if that’s the case, then there’s definitely something amiss. 300 GB of used space is way too much if it’s not user data.

So you’ve got two separate issues that ought to be addressed. One is the question, “What’s eating all my C space?” The other is, “How do I go about repartitioning?”

The second one is fairly easy, and I think you’ve already got a handle on one solution for that.

Although . . .

I am thinking I should return the space I took from F back to it, so C will have access to the remaining space without further juggling.

That’s the way most computers come from the manufacturer, so there’s nobody who can honestly tell you that’s a bad idea. My preference is for separate partitions, but it’s just that–a preference. Other people prefer one large partition.

In fact, since in your case you seem to need a large C partition, then splitting out a relatively small second partition is probably more trouble than it’s worth. You would probably be better off just merging F back into C and keeping everything together in one giant C partition.

As for what’s eating your C space, that may take a little investigative work. Others have already given you some clues to the usual suspects, but you say none of those seem to be the culprit, so it’s probably time to look a little deeper at what’s actually on your C partition. I suggest using SpaceSniffer. It will provide a visual display of nested boxes so you can readily see what’s taking up the most space.

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Just found at least a big portion of the space problem with Space Sniffer, giant Karpersky log files, 200GB worth. Now the problem is that it keeps telling me I have to have administrator privileges. I am the administrator, for Pete’s Sake. Other Windows folders give me the same problem. How can I get Windows to accept me as administrator?

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Now the problem is that it keeps telling me I have to have administrator privileges.

Open a Command Prompt as administrator by right clicking on the icon and selecting Run as Administrator. Now you should be able to delete the file by typing “del path_to_file”.
e.g. del “C:Program FilesKasperskylogslogfile.log”
Note the use of quotes around the file path and name because there is a space in Program Files.

cheers, Paul

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A question about the size of the C drive. I did a restore a few months ago, does that create a full backup copy somewhere, if so, where. I don’t find anything that looks like that or of any size.

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Have you checked whether there’s an option in the Kaspersky menus to delete log files or something similar?

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Use Ccleaner to remove those temp log files….works great at keeping a system clean of temp and junk files.

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