Windows 7: Partitioned drive on Samsung R780 / Windows 7

Hello to you all,

This is my first post and I'm far from being a computer expert... so please accept my apologies if this is in the wrong section or if it is such a simply query that a four year old could solve it!



I've recently purchased a Samsung R780 laptop and when it first started to install Windows 7 it asked me to partition my hard-drive. As I was a little unsure about this I did some searches on my phone and found that it was good to have a small ish partition as my 'C' Drive (i.e. where Windows was to be installed) and a bigger partition for my 'D' Drive to store my personal data. As such, I opted to have 86 gig on my 'C' Drive and 490 gig on my 'D' Drive. This is all well and good, however, I've found that when I installed my virus protector it didn't give me the option to select which drive I wanted to install to. I.e. I downloaded ESET NOD 32 and it automatically assigned itself to my 'C' Drive. So, my first question for you Windows experts is, can I set something up so that I'm given the option of which drive to install programs too (I want to install iTunes, but knowing how large their software is I'm afraid I will run out of space on my 'C' Drive - I only have 55 gig left)... I would prefer not to have to use regedit if possible, as I understand this can be a minefield for inexperienced people like myself.

My second question relates to the fact that I tried assigning 'My Music' folder to the 'D' Drive. I did this by changing its location under preferences. However, this created a duplicate folder in the original location. For example, I had 'My Music' and 'Music' - when I opened 'My Music' it worked fine and was pointing to my 'D' Drive, however, when I tried to open/delete 'Music' I received an error message saying something like I didn't have admin rights (I double checked and I am definitely set up as an administrator). As such, I reverted to the restore program which put everything back to a state as if I had just booted the laptop for the first time. Does anyone know if I can have folders such as 'My Music'; 'My Documents'; My Pictures etc. located on my 'D' Drive and not duplicated as an un-accessible folder on my 'C' Drive?

I'm really sorry for the long post - I hope that someone is able to help me as I'm too scared to install any more programs until I've figured this out.

My thanks in advance to those who respond.

Stephen

Welcome Stephen to the windows 7 forums.
Most programs do give you the option of where to install them. Some do not but most do. Many times there is a small screen where you can change the drive and directory where they will be installed.

That aside. I have many programs and their data installed on my larger D drive like documents and special directories for my email. My outlook uses a directory on my D to store the .pst file which can get large.

I would recommend creating directories on your data drive that you will then have to go into each program and change the default directory for it's data.

Once you install a program on your C drive, you are kind of out of luck unless you uninstall and then re-install telling it to use the D drive. Many people just take the defaults but many programs require that you allow them to put some data on the C, such as dll's and such.

Ymmv.

Rich
PS: again Welcome.

Hey Rich - thanks for the reply and thanks for the welcome. Here's hoping that most of my installs give me the option of where to install them.

Any ideas how I can stop the duplicate folders when I change the location from my 'C' drive to the 'D' drive.

Anyway, thanks again for the response.

Don't know about your folder situation, but you are probably worrying needlessly about drive space on C.

86 GB is quite large. I have 22 GB occupied out of 60 available.

Some apps demand that all or part of them go on C. I've never seen a reason to not install all apps to C, but I guess there might be a reason if you have an extraordinary number of apps, have big gaming installs, or some other unusual situation.

Why are you installing programs to your data drive when you have a 86gb Windows 7 partition? What are you putting on the C partition?

Programs write Registry keys which integrate themselves into the OS so should remain on the same partition. This way if Windows 7 becomes irreparable you can reimage the OS/Programs partition in 20 minutes and your data is ready and current in its separate partition "vault."

Here is how to move your User folders to their own data partition: User Folders - Change Default Location

System Image Recovery
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
Backup User and System Files

Thanks ignatzatsonic and gregrocker for the replies - really appreciate your help.

I'm perhaps worrying about nothing then. My 86 gig drive already has 56 gig used up, so I'm guessing that 30 gig should be okay to install iTunes (and their many updates) as wells as some other programs... does this sound enought? I do not intend on installing any games.

As for moving the folders, thanks for the link gregrocker - I will try this out now.

Thanks again guys.

Okay, so I followed the link provided to me by greglocker, point by point, and I'm left with a 'My Music' folder in my 'D' Drive and a 'Music' folder in my 'C' drive. I want to delete the Music folder from the 'C' drive, but whenever I try I receive this error message: 'C:Users\Stephen\Music is not accessible. Access is denied.' Please see example attached. Can anyone advise how I can get rid of this 'Music' folder and is 'My Music' definitely now defaulting to the 'D' Drive.

As a side note, just to confirm that I followed the instructions on the link perfectly. I ensured that I clicked yes when I got the warning asking if I wanted to move all of the files from the old location to the new location... so I do not believe that the reason this is happening is anything I've done wrong... although I'm happy to be corrected?

Does anyone have any ideas please, as this is driving me nuts?

Thanks in advance.

In addition to my last e-mail, I've also taken another screen dump which shows that I appear to have two 'Music' files. I accessed this by going to the start menu and clicking on 'My Music' from there... I really am confused?

Hi

If all this Folder shifiting is to create more space on your primary partition...

Have you considered extending the size of your C: partition HDD in your Disk Management console?

If you wish to carry on shifiting these folders im sure someone else with the practical knowledge in this forum will help you...


hope this helps...



These two folders are creted by windows and stay on windows.. this is ok...

Hi Classic D - thanks for the advice. I want to keep my 'C' partition small so that my system boots quickly, however, I would ideally like to have 'My Music'; 'My Videos'; 'My Documents' and 'My Pictures' on my 'D' Drive and no duplicate folders of them on another drive... especially considering my start menu seems to still be pointing to the 'C' drive.

I do have the option of removing the 'Music' folder from my 'C' drive by clicking the button shown in my last picture - however, I'm wondering if that would mean when I click 'Music' from the start menu that Windows wouldn't be able to find my 'D' drive file seeing as it's currently point to the 'C' drive (hope that makes sense).

I'm surprised that I'm the only person who seems to have had this issue... it makes me feel I'm doing something wrong, however, I followed the steps I was given step by step.