Help I made a goof

[easygoer]

Alright just built my computer and was doing some reading. I read a thread where a guy when he formatted his harddrive he made a couple of partitions...1 for windows 1 for games 1 for music like that. So I figured I'd do that too. He said you only need bout 5g for windows. Thats what I made mine but now I have no room on it. I installed my games and stuff on a different drive but now its full. How can I resize it or how can I just start from scratch.... :bang head I really don't wanna do that becasuse I spent all day today setting everything up and to start over.... :bang head I tried to use partition magic but it aint working for me. I clicked on resize partition---> click the one I wanted to make bigger and added another 10gs-------->choose take it form another drive------>went through everything and when I clicked on apply changes they it stayed the same. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks

[K15]

Alright just built my computer and was doing some reading. I read a thread where a guy when he formatted his harddrive he made a couple of partitions...1 for windows 1 for games 1 for music like that. So I figured I'd do that too. He said you only need bout 5g for windows. Thats what I made mine but now I have no room on it. I installed my games and stuff on a different drive but now its full. How can I resize it or how can I just start from scratch.... :bang head I really don't wanna do that becasuse I spent all day today setting everything up and to start over.... :bang head I tried to use partition magic but it aint working for me. I clicked on resize partition---> click the one I wanted to make bigger and added another 10gs-------->choose take it form another drive------>went through everything and when I clicked on apply changes they it stayed the same. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks


I don't know if i'm 100% right, but I doubt you can resize the partition now. How big is the drive? If it's anything more than 80GB, a 15GB OS partition is good. Even if you ONLY put XP in there, some programs refuse to install on anything but the boot partition (most M$ programs for example, only install on C:)
But what all do you have on the OS partition? XP itself shouldn't take up more than about 2GB at most. Check your swap file size, or put the swap file on another partition.
Also check the size of your browser's cache. I never use more than 50MB for my browser's cache.

[LabRat23]

Your virtual memory holds quite a bit of your hard drive. You need to move some of it to another partition. Go through My Computer and start finding out what is taking the room. I would bet on all the downloads and misc files that get saved on the desktop and in my documents are taking more space than you think.

[easygoer]

I formatted it for 5g. Windows takes up 1.6G and the other 2 folders dont even hold a gig. Don't know whats up with it.

Drive is 250G. I have 2 set up but the other one I never formated. I want to set up raid0. I just havent researched it yet.

[grumperfish]

I had this problem with my second-to-last XP reinstall. I made the Windows partition too small (around 9 gigs) and it filled up quickly despite only using a couple gigs for system stuff. A few things you'll need to look at are the following:

1. Windows System Restore: not only will it take up a certain portion of your drive - I believe the default amount is 12% - but it will continue to suck up available space. By enabling the viewing of hidden files and folders and allowing sharing on your system volume information folder you should be able to get into that folder. You might want to look into clearing some of the earlier restore points to free up some space (don't delete the 6-10 newer ones; I made this mistake).
2. Virtual memory. Move your virtual mem. space to another drive or partition. Also, you can lower the 10% of the drive that the Recycle Bin uses.
3. The default "Documents and Settings/..." folders can be moved to a different drive or partition in XP. They take up more space than you realize. You'd have to do some google searching to figure out how to do this, and it involves modifying the registry.


All in all though, a Windows reinstall would probably be a heck of alot easier, and you put your data in less risk doing so. Your best bet is just to back up your drive(s) and reformat.

[stool]

If you are only running the 1 drive, there's no way you are doing a RAID setup. As this is a fresh install, just use the software that came with the drive. Start from scratch, do a fresh format, and set up your partitions from there. On a 250GB drive, I'd say do 50gb for XP, and wack the rest up for games and music.

[stang8118]

Stool he never claimed to have a raid setup. Says in his post "I want to set up raid0. I just havent researched it yet.".

When using partition magic have you tried to shrink a partition down first, say from 100gb > 80gbs first, THEN try to add that to your windows partition?

[stool]

Stool he never claimed to have a raid setup. Says in his post "I want to set up raid0. I just havent researched it yet.".

Never said he did. What I said was you can't and won't run a RAID setup with 1 drive.

[OCOC]

partition magic will make your job easier.