departition hard drive

blueflash · 27 Nov 2011

I have a w7 home premium x64 pc with 1TB hard drive.
When I bought it, the HD was partitioned half and half to C and D drives. In doing so, about 200GB was "lost" to the D drive - using "Properties",it shows about 300GB in use but actually only about 100GB are in use.

If I copy all the data I want from D to C (or an external HD) can I remove the D partition without having to reload w7 and all my programs?

Thanks

ignatzatsonic · 27 Nov 2011

blueflash said:

I have a w7 home premium x64 pc with 1TB hard drive.
When I bought it, the HD was partitioned half and half to C and D drives. In doing so, about 200GB was "lost" to the D drive - using "Properties",it shows about 300GB in use but actually only about 100GB are in use.

If I copy all the data I want from D to C (or an external HD) can I remove the D partition without having to reload w7 and all my programs?

Thanks

Yes, you can.

But I'd like to hear more about this HD with the "lost" 200 GB.

Can you post a picture of your Disk Management screen.

whs · 27 Nov 2011

1. Why do you want to remove the D partition - and what is currently on it. It may be a good candidate for your user data.

2. You probably have more than 2 partitions. Some may be hidden. As ignatz requested, a picture of Disk Management will help clarify that.

blueflash · 27 Nov 2011

whs - I want to get back the "lost" 200GB or so

ignatz - attached files show D. When I do Properties on each of the folders shown on D and add up their size, I get about 55GB as shown by "Treesize", not approx 300GB as shown by Fig1

whs · 27 Nov 2011

The way you add things up does not tell you anything. You have to run WinDirStat to get a true picture of which files are on your disk.

in addition there may be a lot of shadowstorage for the restore points. To see that, open an elevated command prompt and run this command: vssadmin list shadowstorage

Only if you add the 2 together, you will know what is on your disk.

And you did not "loose" the 200GBs. It is just another partition. And since it is good practice to seperate the user data from the operating system partition. I suggest you use it for your own data. Then you do not risk to loose your data when you have to reinstall your system.

blueflash · 27 Nov 2011

Thanks for your help so far. Have run the two progs as you suggested. WinDirStat seems to show only 55GB in use on D.
Not sure what shadowstorage is or whether it is excessively large. But adding that (say 136GB) to the 55GB gives about 190GB. Properties from Explorer on D shows 327GB in use - is this incorrect?

whs · 27 Nov 2011

The shadowstorge on C: is OK. On D: it is excessive. Reduce it to e.g. 10GB. The command is:

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=10GB

blueflash · 27 Nov 2011

I have reduced shadowstorage as advised. Now Explorer Properties shows 187GB in use, WinDirStat still shows 55GB in use.
I am struggling to understand why there is a difference and what it means.

MilesAhead · 27 Nov 2011

blueflash said:

whs - I want to get back the "lost" 200GB or so

ignatz - attached files show D. When I do Properties on each of the folders shown on D and add up their size, I get about 55GB as shown by "Treesize", not approx 300GB as shown by Fig1

Does anyone else think the Disk Management screen shot is kind of funky? What's all that stuff on the right hand side after the disk partitions? Could the partition table be messed up or is it just the DM display is showing empty views?

Something looks strange.

ignatzatsonic · 27 Nov 2011

MilesAhead said:

blueflash said:

whs - I want to get back the "lost" 200GB or so

ignatz - attached files show D. When I do Properties on each of the folders shown on D and add up their size, I get about 55GB as shown by "Treesize", not approx 300GB as shown by Fig1

Does anyone else think the Disk Management screen shot is kind of funky? What's all that stuff on the right hand side after the disk partitions? Could the partition table be messed up or is it just the DM display is showing empty views?

Something looks strange.

Yeah, I wondered, too.

I also see an F "Application" drive with a CDFS file system. Is that what is shown on the right side?