My machine, which is about 7 years old: XP Home, SP3; Pentium 4, 2.60 GHz; 1 GB RAM; I think it's a 100GB HD. 

When new, a friend encouraged me to partition the drive so my HD could search faster.  I did.  We put in, "drives, C, D, (Apps), E, (Images), F, (Games), and G, (Swap).  C drive's capacity is 7.80 GB.

Over the years I've tried to always put new programs into a drive other then C.  I've done pretty well there.

However, there have been a great many MSoft updates, etc., and for the past few weeks I occasional get a pop-up that says I'm running out of disk space.  I've moved all I can off of C drive now...even including Adobe Reader, (which I can't seem to download onto anything but C drive). 

This morning when I TURNED this machine on I checked and I have 217MB of space available on C drive.

I've searched this forum first to try to understand partitions, but find it confusing.  I understand I can completely reload Windows XP and begin again but find that a bit scary.

Questions:  how much space can years of MS updates, etc., soak up in my 7.80GB C drive?  Because I just have pretty basic stuff in my C drive.  (Scanner, printer, odds and ends).

Could some large program be in my C drive that I cannot find/identify? 

I'd like to scrutinize my C drive to see if I've dumbly missed something using up memory before I try a re-load.

I'm not sure where to go with this?  Ideas?

Thank you,
DennisI don't believe the cumulative effect of MS updates is a substantial factor here.  And, anyway, they are needed, so let's move on to other factors.

How did you do the partitioning that you described?  Do you have partitioning software installed? 

Not making C larger when you did the partitioning was a mistake but that's water over the *censored* now.   Do you still have any apps installed on C that you could uninstall and reinstall on D? 

Is my My Documents folder on C?  How large is it?  If it's still on C, it could be moved to a different partition.  But, I believe you are truly in need of EXPANSION of C.  If you have no partitioning program installed, here's a good freeware option: http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htmThank you.  My Documents is, indeed, on C, but only consumes 237MB.  When I partitioned the drive on this machine, it was when it was new and I merely followed my friend's instructions.  (I'd ask him, but he was killed in a vehicle accident a little while afterward)  I am certain I have no partitioning software or program here. 

How do I move My Doc's to another partition?

The best thing I heard you say is that the MS updates, etc., should not be the main problem.  I, myself, cannot see why MS would consume the majority of my 7.80GB C drive.   I wonder if I can, "copy," the add/remove text that shows what I have in C and paste it here on the forum?  On the other hand, I don't trust that entire text really shows in itself where the programs are located.

On to the, "partition-tool," free-ware you suggested, is that something I should download right now, (to a drive different than, "C,") ??  And CAN I enlarge C drive without reloading XP?

Yes, not making C drive larger was a huge mistake, but we both were TRYING our best at the time with the only knowledge we had at the time. 

While I'm not a computer guru, I do have safeguards installed, seldom download anything just for kicks, I do de-frags, cleanups, etc.  I try to do my homework and am very careful about my computer as far as my knowledge is capable of.

Dennis

Sorry to hear about your friend...

Post a screenshot of Disk Management and we'll have a looksee...I partition about the same way (my C-Drive is OS & Apps, D-Drive is Data, E is Downloads, F is Swap):  8GB for WinXP is about right, so you would want at least a 10GB partition.  Look under the C:\Windows directory.  All the entries with "$" are update backups which can delete.  System Restore will take up a lot of space too.  Turn it off & it will be deleted & reformed when you turn it back on.  In order to tell Windows your Docs are located in a different place, use TweakUI, free from Microsoft.

Partition Tool will do just fine for you.Commando:
I turned off system restore, restarted computer, then un-checked sysresote to reactivate it.  I gained me about 100MB
You said look under C:\windows directory.  Uncertain, I clicked start, explore and looked at what was under C drive and the little boxes with + or -.  I see my AVG has a $ sign, which might be surplus as I thought I had loaded that into D drive.  But I see NO other $ signs.  So you are saying I can delect anything with the $ sign because it is redundant?  Maybe I'll try deleting AVG and see if I loose it or what happens. 

Patio:  How do I take a screen shot of Disk Management???  I found DM, but don't know what to do with it.  It does list all drives as, "healthy."  C drive is 3% free space; Drive F is 93% free out of a total of 46.87 in F.

I am encouraged by the comments from all of you, I just need to learn more and how to implement a course of action.

Dennis

Quote from: DennisT on APRIL 10, 2011, 02:10:08 PM

...I turned off system restore, restarted computer, then un-checked sysresote to reactivate it.  I gained me about 100MB
You said look under C:\windows directory.  Uncertain, I clicked start, explore and looked at what was under C drive and the little boxes with + or -.  I see my AVG has a $ sign, which might be surplus as I thought I had loaded that into D drive.  But I see NO other $ signs.  So you are saying I can delect anything with the $ sign because it is redundant?  Maybe I'll try deleting AVG and see if I loose it or what happens. 
...

How do I move My Doc's to another partition?

I expect to download your, "Partition Tool," wherever I find it, ...

... and see what that looks like.  Perhaps it's self-explanatory.