# Moving C drive files



## Thurman (Feb 9, 2009)

My computer's "C" drive has 90GB of space and only 88MB of free space _after_ I have moved all pictures and personal files to my new external hard drive which has 931 GB capacity, 4.37 of used space, and 927 of free space. Now I'm told I need to move the files on the "C" drive, which are for programs run on the computer to the external hard drive to free up more space on the "C" drive, only the "technician of the day" at Office Depot does not know how to do that. So, can the files be moved from the "C" drive to the external drive and how? All of these files are under the "Add or remove programs" in control panel. Computer dummy David.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Nope, can't move them
Programs are installed to a specific location & Windows records where the program is installed

If you have Office uninstalling & re-installing to the external will free up a lot of space ~1g
Look to see what other programs are using a lot of space & uninstall & re-install them
My Adobe premier uses ~4g

NOTE: some programs SAVE their files in the installed location
So verify that 1st
AND any customizations ect will be lost once you uninstall the program


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Take a look at the program called gparted ( http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ ) and what it will let you do is resize your C drive, assuming it's not just one small hard drive, but that it is partitioned. 

If you don't have extra space at all then you may want to look into a bigger hdd (they're very cheap these days) and move the partition completely over to the new drive then resize it.


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## poppameth (Oct 2, 2008)

1) You need to look through your hard drive and find out if you have any temporary files hanging around. I've seen a lot of my customers that do things such as rip and burn DVDs and never realize that those temporary video files are still hanging around on their PC taking up space. You could have similar files hiding on your HDD taking up a ton of room. I'd go to your C drive and right click on the Program Files folder and click properties. Let it scan until the "Size" stops moving and see how much room your "Program Files" folder is taking up. If it isn't nearly enough to account for all the space you seem to be using, then something is hiding on your PC that can probably be removed. You can also check other folders such as My Documents this way until you locate the larger files.

2) Get a new higher capacity HDD and "clone" the old one to the new one with the appropriate software. You can spend a couple hours doing this and have a lot more room and your computer working just like it is now without having to reinstall everything from scratch.


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## Thurman (Feb 9, 2009)

poppameth-all temp files have been deleted. To all-I have found something interesting and I don't understand. When I break down "C" drive into files, there are eleven (11) in there. Documents & Setting takes up 1.99 GB, Program Files takes up 1.55 GB, but Windows takes up a whopping 82.6 GB. There are a few taking up less then 50 MB each. With only 90 GB capacity I think I see a problem with Windows, but don't know what, if anything, can be done with it. My understanding is that Windows is the operating software that I need it to operate the computer. I can open Windows and there is a lot of stuff in there I don't understand. I don know this computer has not always been this way. It is two years old and was fast as lightning when I first got it. Didn't it have Windows in it then? Thanks for any suggestions, David


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## tribe_fan (May 18, 2006)

I think you have some temporary file in the Windows directory or sub directories. 

As an example Microsoft Word store some tmp files in C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\local settings\temporary internet files\content.word

Its application specific, but still in the Windows directory.

If you can get to a c> (Start/Run/CMD) change to the Windows directory.

Type in dir/s>myfiles.txt

This could take a few minutes.

This will create a text file called myfiles.txt you can looks at it to see where the problem is. If Windows is not the culprit, try other directories. 

There may be programs to do this for you. 90 G should be large enough, unless you have numerous programs loaded.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

I have Windows Vista & it is using 15g of space

I usually do a search on the C drive & specify file size larger then 10m (10,000) to find larger files

Then I can look thru them & delete junk


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## poppameth (Oct 2, 2008)

First thing I'd recommend at this point is download and install CCleaner from www.ccleaner.com and run a scan with that. It should only take a few minutes and it will list all the files that can be deleted safely along with a total amount of space that you can recover by doing so. If it finds a huge amount of junk files, then allowing it to clean them out may solve all your problems. The Windows folder should not have nearly that large of a file size. I recall running Photoshop on my girlfriend's PC a couple years ago and it hung causing me to reboot. I then discovered I'd lost 60GB of disk space. It was all in a temporary file Photoshop had made when it crashed. Something similar could be hanging around on your PC and just need removed.


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## Thurman (Feb 9, 2009)

I downloaded the Ccleaner, ran it and followed the instructions as to cleaning up junk files. This only reduced the amount of used space on "C" drive by 80 GB, not really enough to help me out. The Ccleaner broke down the files, but I don't really know what I'm looking at, so I won't delete anything I'm not sure of. I sent out a distress call to family members and friends looking for a computer tech type person for some help. Thanks, David


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Open windows Explorer
In search pane enter"advanced search" & hit enter
For location select windows folder

Change to side to GREATER then & enter 10000

Hit enter

Well, I just searched my hard drive & its not working 
Another messed up MS OS
This search worked so well in XP :furious:


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## Thurman (Feb 9, 2009)

Remember-I'm learning. What is, or how do you, "Open windows Explorer? My computer has Windows XP and I use Mozilla Firefox to gain access to the Internet. Just yesterday (THU) the computer would not open to the Internet. When the Firefox icon was clicked on, it attempted to open it and then the monitor went black for a few seconds. The next thing to appear was a screen with the "_e_-machine" image on it and two lines. One line stated to use F8 for something and F12 for something, neither of them did anything though. My wife had left this screen up for over five hours before I got home, I could do nothing with it so I cut the power to the computer only, waited ten seconds and plugged it back in. Then it would run fine, albeit slow, and open the Internet. We have not used it for anything until I had time to send this message. Thanks, David


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## john curry (Aug 14, 2009)

I just looked at my Windows (XP on a desktop) and it has 3GB of data. My wifes laptop XP has 5GB of data. Granted I keep both machines "clean" but obviously you have a whole bunch stored under Windows folder.

Lets us backup and allow me to ask a few questions.

How important/replaceable is the "stuff" on your computer? I am leading toward doing a Recovery that will knock the machine back to the way it was when originally out of the box.

This means all data and programs loaded since it came out of the box will be gone, I repeat gone. Critical to undersand this. Gone....Gone....LOL

One can save (backup) data (docs, pics, music, videos, etc.) by copying it off before doing a Recovery but in most cases the program that created the data will be lost. Example one can save their Word Documents (xxxxx.doc) but the Word program will have to be reloaded so you must have the source disk to do so. Same applies to things like accounting programs. You can save the data/backups but not the program. You can reload the program then open up the backups and you will be back to where you were. But to repeat, you have to have the original program disk.

Quite often with an older machine, this can be the best solution. It might sound difficult but depending on your machine it might be easier.

If interested, then I suggest you investigate Recovery. The documentation that came with your computer should explain how to do it. Basically it is done:

1. With discs that came with your machine. Usually 2 to 3 CD's.
2. With discs you built when you first powered up the machine. Usually 10 or so CD's or 2 DVD's.
3. From a Recovery program installed (sometimes hidden) on your machine. This method has become the norm in the last few years so it may not be on a four year old machine.

I tried to keep this simple which many geeks cannot do..........LOL

Hope this helps.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Windows explorer is an icon used to explore the C drive of your PC
It may be under accessories or under the program menu










Your computer is running out of room
While running the PC creates Temp files that it uses
If it can't create these Temp files it can crash


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## john curry (Aug 14, 2009)

Thurman

To clean up old files simply go:

click on START
click on HELP AND SUPPORT
in the search box type in TEMPORARY FILES
hit RETURN
under OVERVIEWS, ARTICLES
click on USING DISK CLEANUP

follow the instructions

Hope this helps.


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## Wildie (Jul 23, 2008)

To open Windows Explorer in both XP and Vista, right click the START button and click on EXPLORE!


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