h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have windows 97 professional, pentium 3, 2.24 GB on C drive, 3.76 GB on DATA(D
54% free on data and 5% free on c drive.

I have moved everything I can onto Data. How can I change the partition to free up more space on C?


Any advice appreciated

Erm... I could be wrong but I think the answer is you can't... not without specific software (or reformating the whole disc )

Have you done the obvious like emptying your c:/windows/temp/ folder?

Apart from that, the other move would be to uninstall some programmes from the C drive and re-install them on D: (assuming you've got the original CDs

If you've used 2GB of C then there must be quite a few programmes on there

Yep - i have emptied everything i can. The rest of the stuff i can't move due to a sharing violation - let's just say I inherited the PC complete with programs from a friend (not stolen - just recycled from obsolete stock)

Oh well, i have been promised a gizmo to increase the memory so I guess I will have to be patient.

Thanks anyway!

Hello Mort
Correct me if I am wrong please, but did you mean windows 98 and Office 97 professional

Windows 98 uses up to 300MB
Office 97 uses up to 165MB


You can.
1. Empty and Switch off the bin.
2. Reduce the size and/or Move the internet cash to the D: drive
3. Reduce the size of the swap file, but it must not fall lower that the physical ram.
4. Uninstall unwanted programs.
5. Scan you system for txt. doc, bak. Files and move them to D:

Then run check disk and then Disk Defragment the C: drive. That might get you an extra 300MB

Sorry it is windows 2000, should have said that.

helloo Mort

Ah, then miss out number 3. And Check Disk

2Kp need nearly 1.6 GB for a full install
Can you check and see if IIS is installed?

partition magic 8, if i rember correctly will resize any of the partitions, will even reduce C: however that will require a stint in dos mode.

also would deffineatly not recoend resizeing C as you could lose something vital by accident.

oops o miss read you want to increse C.


should work, though still VERY risky.

PM8 is also £50 if I remember correctly, I suppose you could see if you can borrow it. I never had any problems with it, and is bootable from the CD, and works with NTFS.

program is good.

*has no recallecton of cost*

*Recalls cost* v8 £40.54 inc. VAT www.spellsoftware.com

Always defrag, and scandisk on all HD drive letters for that physical drive, before altering partition sizes.

Another way is to use a Linux install, ie Mandrake to alter the sizes, then quit the install. I have an old version, free with a "PC Plus!" mag. Howerver free software from mags should be given a miss as a rule, just happens Mandrake is good.

Partition Magic is much simpler to use though.

Anybody used "FIPS" of late? Shareware jobby.

On free software on magazines...

Acronis PartitionExpert has been free on various magazines recently (I think the current PC Plus), and I've used it without any problems (to resize c

Go for it, the magazine's pretty good too

£40? You could get a new, much bigger hard disk for £50...

Hard disks are very cheap these days, it's rarely worth messing about with them... if in doubt, buy a new one, and use the old one for backup... that's what I'd tend to recommend, anyway

A 2nd hand < 10 Gig is about £10-ish down my local computer shop.

An new 40Gig hard drive is about £40, and 80Gig about £60. *That* would increase the space you've got, but if you get it mail order, then you'd have to install it yourself (it's not too hard, but messing inside your PC will void any warrenty you've got).
Look at http://computing.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/c_116501_hard_drives.html for the latest prices.

Before you do ANYTHING like that:
* Make sure you have the windows installation CD-ROM.
* Make sure you've backed up everything that's really important (including that last save of Final Fantisy) to FLOPPY DISK (or CD), as it's the only way to be _really_ sure of getting it back if it all goes awol
* Also try to back up the root directory and the Windows dirctory.
* Create a floppy boot disk. Do this from system in control panel (I think) or the "ebd" folder in windows (if you have it).

If you do get a hard disk, check inside your computer first to make sure you have a free slot (you should have), and check if your current hard drive is SCSI or PCI, as if you have PCI you might not be able to boot from SCSI.



If you don't want to bother with that kind of thing, uninstall some programs in the Add/Remove programs bit. Look through everything and if it didn't delete your saved games, and you don't want them then delete them.

I'm not sure if you've got it, but there's Disk Cleanup on Win 98. Use this. Clear your cookies. Delete everyting in your temporary directories (c:\temp c:\windows\temp etc).


Bob McBob

You could back you files up then use fdisk.
Im not sure if this works in 2000, but it does in 98.

You would just have to:
1)restart in DOS mode
2)type format c:
once it is finished
3)fdisk
make sure your partitions add up to 100% though, or you will be losing space.

Fdisk removes everything from your hard drive ... the whole point was to avoid removing it in the 1st place wasn't it?


what file system are you useing on you computer?

Fat32 or NTFS

dos does not work with NTFS formating

Thats what backing up was for
But, Fdisk does not remove everything from your computer, that is formating, which must be done in order to fdisk. Or at least I though.

Mag freebies, don't use VCOM Partition Comander 6 as given away with PCPlus Iss. 205 (Aug 2003) it's a nightmare FDISK could not make sense of the drive after running this, so had to resort to Linux to sort it.

The 'just buy another drive' idea seems best. Provided you have space. *thinks laptop/Shuttle one drive bay.*

my understanding was taht u did not need ot format, but if u chacnge anythign using fdisk it erases that contents of the disk thourgh its process to cahnge teh partitions.

but what do io know.

If you use FDISK, delete a logical drive in the extended partition, change your mind, and re-create it, never leaving FDISK, (thus never running FORMAT) you may be lucky, then again you may not.

Anyway, its "FORMAT C: /U" to do the drive for sure.