Hard drive partitions too small

Helpline Q&A Directory

I recently decided to set up my hard drive with a small partition just for the operating system. Now I receive messages saying the main partition is almost full and disk cleanup runs. How can I stop this and tell Windows to use the other partitions?

We think your basic problem is that you created your Windows partition too small. The trouble is that, regardless of which drive you choose to install a program on, most applications include a number of shared files that have to be installed in the Windows folder. Therefore, you must leave a few hundred megabytes of free space over and above that used by Windows, in order to allow for the expansion this entails.

To be honest, there isn't a lot of point in installing applications on a separate drive to Windows, since most applications need to be reinstalled after you reformat the Windows drive and reinstall Windows.

It is a good idea, though, to keep your My Documents folder, and any other folders containing files you have created, on a separate drive. This can avoid the need to restore them from a backup after reformatting your Windows drive. (This does not mean there's no need to back up your files, of course!)

However, there are probably a few things you can do to overcome the problem you are experiencing by getting Windows to use your D drive for various temporary files. The swap file, for example, will currently be on the C drive.

To change this, right-click My Computer, and select Properties. Click on the Performance tab, select Virtual Memory, then choose 'Let me specify my own virtual memory settings'. Having done this, select your D drive from the drop-down list, keeping everything else the same. Then click ok and restart Windows.

Another heavy user of space is Internet Explorer's Temporary Internet Files folder. To change the location used by this folder, open Internet Explorer and click on Tools, Internet Options. Under Temporary Internet files click on Settings. In the Settings dialog box click Move Folder, then choose a new location for this folder on your other drive. It's a good idea to create the new folder first, before doing this.

You can also tell Windows to use a folder on another drive for the storage of temporary files by inserting into c:\autoexec.bat a line that says:

Set Temp=d:\Temp

Again, ensure that the folder you specify - for example, d:\Temp - actually exists before rebooting (this option isn't available with Windows Me, which ignores autoexec.bat.) These three changes should result in Windows making a lot less use of your C drive partition, solving the problem.

You may need to manually delete the original folders on the C drive, and the old Windows swap file c:\Windows\Win386.swp if it is still present, before you get back the extra space. Note that the swap file is a hidden system file, so you'll need to change some Explorer folder options before you can see it.