How do I use my Data (D:) drive?

OK, so I have a laptop with a (supposedly) 500 gigabyte hard drive. My OS (C:) drive is 195 gb, and almost full. I'm wondering if there's a way to use my Data (D:) drive, which is 245 gb and almost completely empty, for normal storage, like pictures, music, and movies. And what is it used for now? Why make that much memory, just to be empty?

asked Sep 07 '12 at 12:52

LukeS
16●15●22●26

7 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

You could 3rd party freeware directly add some of the free space to C drive without deleting D drive. I used to use AOMEI Partition Assistant which was spoken highly of by PCworld, you can see this review: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,222251-order,4/description.html

answered Sep 13 '12 at 23:38

jessica
41●1

Thank you! That worked perfectly. Exactly what I wanted.

(Sep 15 '12 at 09:03) LukeS

The D drive is there to store your data: Movies, Music, Pictures. That's the point of it. If it's empty it's not used for anything and is designed to be filled. You should move all your media over to your D drive!

answered Sep 07 '12 at 13:22

Mattophobia ♦♦
7.0k●73●122●206

Do I do that just by moving them over manually? I don't want to mess up something, and for some reason I feel like I'm going to.

(Sep 07 '12 at 13:37) LukeS

You could. I mean if you're using iTunes or something it'll have it's own folder, if you move it it'll ask you to locate each individual file again - But I think you can change the location of the iTunes folder in the settings, I'm not entirely sure!

Also, you can delete the D drive and add the space to the C drive, but you'd need a 3rd party partition manager, a lot of them are paid for on Windows and I'm not entirely sure which is the best - But it is possible quite easily.

(Sep 07 '12 at 15:22) Mattophobia ♦♦

It is possible to do this in Windows with no software using Windows Vista or higher

(Sep 07 '12 at 15:25) Tim Fontana

Really? I didn't think you could combine or resize partitions using Windows own partition manager?

(Sep 07 '12 at 15:39) Mattophobia ♦♦

you can from Windows Vista and up

(Sep 07 '12 at 16:20) Tim Fontana

I believe your hard drive is partitioned into two drives. If you wanted one partition with more space then you would have to re install windows and use the partition utility offered when booting off the installation dvd. You would just delete the partitions, format, then install. You will then have a C drive of about 465GB.

That's what I would do but I'm sure there are utilities out there to change partition sizes without re installing but I don't have any experience using those. I have separate hard drives so I never saw the need to partition one drive into several but I guess that's how computers come sometimes.

answered Sep 07 '12 at 17:59

IamTechCrazy
4.6k●73●98●144

0	Please, please search around before you ask a question. http://goo.gl/uWrga answered Sep 07 '12 at 21:18 Cameron 1.8k●103●127●134

They put the other drive there for that reason, or for backups should you do a factory restore your data on that drive would be safe.

Just cut and paste over your files you want to remove from the C Drive onto the D drive. I always create folders to make things more organized.

You can also install your programs onto the D drive, when your installing do a custom install (if there is an option) when you click next, usually on the 2nd or 3rd window you get the option to select an install location, just change the 1st letter to a D and it will install onto the D drive the same way it does on the C.

For programs that are already installed you will have to uninstall and then reinstall them on the D drive if you want them to be moved over.

answered Sep 07 '12 at 23:33

roguekiller23231
4.2k●72●104●142

Copy your files to a folder on a USB stick drive. Open the drive on the PC, right click, then on the send to- option, you should be able to copy your files to the D: drive. I believe that if you have data on your PC you should try to preserve it rather than re-format and re-install. If your laptop doesn't have issues don't change it.

answered Sep 14 '12 at 15:25

gnomie1
26●1

-1

Delete the D drive and add the space to the C drive

answered Sep 07 '12 at 14:31

msmit1993
121●11●11●18

I can do that?! And is it really that simple? A general walkthrough would be awesome, if there's anything that could go horribly wrong.

(Sep 07 '12 at 14:49) LukeS

Assuming it's all on one physical drive, the point of partitioning a drive is so that if your OS crashes, you can do a clean reinstall without losing anything.

At least now that we don't have to worry about that silly 2GB limit. That was also a pretty good reason to partition.

(Sep 14 '12 at 03:13) tsilb

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