Where can I find what should/must be on C drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ritter197
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ritter197

I use Windows XP Pro and have the following disks or partions:
Cdrive
D drive
E drive
F drive
G drive and
H drive

plus 2 Thumb drives.

I read in the Langa list that the C drive should be used by about 2 GBts,
mine has almost 16 GB on it, even though I install all the time with Custom
install programs onto the H drive.

So I wonder how I can find out what to delete on the C drive
 
ritter197 said:
I use Windows XP Pro and have the following disks or partions:
Cdrive
D drive
E drive
F drive
G drive and
H drive

plus 2 Thumb drives.

I read in the Langa list that the C drive should be used by about 2 GBts,
mine has almost 16 GB on it, even though I install all the time with
Custom install programs onto the H drive.

So I wonder how I can find out what to delete on the C drive
Click to expand...

Sounds like a nightmare to me? Any reason that you do this?
 
ritter197 said:
I use Windows XP Pro and have the following disks or partions:
Cdrive
D drive
E drive
F drive
G drive and
H drive

plus 2 Thumb drives.

I read in the Langa list that the C drive should be used by about 2 GBts,
mine has almost 16 GB on it, even though I install all the time with Custom
install programs onto the H drive.

So I wonder how I can find out what to delete on the C drive
Click to expand...
don't delete anything...
you probably need it.
you may want to do a disk cleanup though
 
Almost ever single program you install (wherever you custom install it to)
is going to write a lot of information to the Windows drive. If you install
AutoCAD to drive D, it will still install about 90 meg to drive C.

Stop fighting a war you can not win.

I would not install Windows XP on a partition smaller than 10 gig. I
habitually install into a 20 gig partition.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Why nightmare?
C drive "should" only be the OS
D is a CD read drive
E is a CD/Read Write drive
F is for Video
G is External drive
H is Applications

Seems very orderly to me.
 
Mine is now 23 Gigs, but I am just not sure whether all the stuff that's
there is really necessary
 
While many people believe in installing their application programs to a
drive different than the OS drive, it won't do them any good if the OS hard
drive crashes or the OS has to be replaced. The reason, XP and almost all
other OSs write information to different files in the OS itself.

When the OS is replaced on your C drive these files do not get automatically
reinstalled and therefore the programs on your H drive won't work. You
would still have to reinstall the applications that are currently on the H
drive.

A better way to ensure that your programs would work after a OS crash is to
image the OS drive, with all programs installed on the OS hard drive, to the
H drive (a physically different drive than the C). That way if the OS drive
dies, simply image the replacement drive from the H drive and you are back
in service.
 
Where do I find that utility? I do not see it when I go to Administrator's
tools or Services or Computer Management.
 
ritter197 said:
Why nightmare?
C drive "should" only be the OS
D is a CD read drive
E is a CD/Read Write drive
F is for Video
G is External drive
H is Applications

Seems very orderly to me.
Click to expand...

It's not saving you anything, and creating a lot more "work" for you.

With Windows, no matter where you put programs, C: still gets lots of
information written to it.

Why do you need a D/E for CD Read/Write???? Unless the computer is a 200Mhz
PC, you should be able to burn from C: and run other applications.

A video drive partition only makes sense if it's physically a separate
drive, otherwise the head has to jump back and forth between the two
partitions making it slower.

Breaking drives up makes sense in an OS like Linux, or DOS... Doesn't make
much sense in Windows.
 
I appreciate your feedback, first of all.

I have 2 CD drives so I can copy from one to the other.

Yes, the Video is a physically separate drive.

And I can see, that a lot of info is being written to C:drive, which I had
hoped to keep clean for strictly the OS WinXP Pro.
 
Oh, I forgot, The CPU is Intel 2.8GHZ, shows in tests and upon sign-on it
runs at 2.91 GHz.
 
While many people believe in installing their application programs to a
drive different than the OS drive, it won't do them any good if the OS hard
drive crashes or the OS has to be replaced. The reason, XP and almost all
other OSs write information to different files in the OS itself.
Click to expand...

There can be other reasons to do it, for example higher
performance, or application specific data stores, put in
same subdirectories as the application, or limiting OS
partition size to accomodate more frequent backups.

This last reason is often overlooked. Suppose you prefer
whole OS partition backups but have 3 GB of
apps/games/whatever too... There's no reason to create
several GB partition images each time when any prior image
made after the apps were installed also has application
information. In worst cases, if apps were installed after a
backup were made, the user simply reinstalls the app, but
does not have the whole system down, can quickly restore the
OS partition and have use of system otherwise.
 
I appreciate your feedback, first of all.

I have 2 CD drives so I can copy from one to the other.

Yes, the Video is a physically separate drive.

And I can see, that a lot of info is being written to C:drive, which I had
hoped to keep clean for strictly the OS WinXP Pro.
Click to expand...


Considering your drives and uses, the way you have it set up
is actually somewhat conservative, some would have even more
drive letters than that. Anyone whose system only has 1
hard drive, 1 optical, will of course not understand this.
 
Almost ever single program you install (wherever you custom install it to)
is going to write a lot of information to the Windows drive. If you install
AutoCAD to drive D, it will still install about 90 meg to drive C.
Click to expand...

That's not really true at all, very few apps actually write
much outside of their chosen subdirectory wherever the user
chooses to put it.

There's of course a fair bit put into the registry, maybe a
validation code thrown somewhere in the Windows folder, but
for the most part only a few very large and bloated apps do
so.

Stop fighting a war you can not win.
Click to expand...

What war is that?
It's not hard at all to keep windows partitions under 10GB.
First one avoids overbloated software. Second they turn off
system restore since it's made completely unnecessary by
full backups. It's very rare for anyone except a gamer to
need more than 10GB OS partition.
I would not install Windows XP on a partition smaller than 10 gig. I
habitually install into a 20 gig partition.
Click to expand...

What a nightmare, it must be a pain to deal with that kind
of sluggishly slow software.
 
I use Windows XP Pro and have the following disks or partions:
Cdrive
D drive
E drive
F drive
G drive and
H drive

plus 2 Thumb drives.

I read in the Langa list that the C drive should be used by about 2 GBts,
mine has almost 16 GB on it, even though I install all the time with Custom
install programs onto the H drive.

So I wonder how I can find out what to delete on the C drive
Click to expand...


It's quite simple- you look at what's there and decide.
We can't decide for you what you want to keep or delete or
backup. Forget about "Laguna list" though, nobody else is
going to be able to make an arbitrary statement like that
which is valid when applied to a different specific system
and configuration (unless you've left out a few details on
how that 2GB figure was derived).
 
There can be other reasons to do it, for example higher
performance, or application specific data stores, put in
same subdirectories as the application, or limiting OS
partition size to accomodate more frequent backups.

This last reason is often overlooked. Suppose you prefer
whole OS partition backups but have 3 GB of
apps/games/whatever too... There's no reason to create
several GB partition images each time when any prior image
made after the apps were installed also has application
information. In worst cases, if apps were installed after a
backup were made, the user simply reinstalls the app, but
does not have the whole system down, can quickly restore the
OS partition and have use of system otherwise.
Click to expand...

Excellent advice! That' how I' ve always worked: C for System (OS and
Harware related programs), D for applications. On top, there is a dedicated
partition only for the page file. I make weekly an image (Acronis True
Image) of the C, and monthly a copy of the D. This working procedure results
in an image of +/- 3 GB instead of 8GB (takes some time to backup!), and I'
m sure XP works faster that way.
 
ritter197 said:
I appreciate your feedback, first of all.

I have 2 CD drives so I can copy from one to the other.

Yes, the Video is a physically separate drive.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize that D and E were CD drives. I though they were hard drives
for buffering/saving to.

Really need to describe how many phyisical drives you have as well as how
many partitions/drive letters.

L8r!
 
SNIP---
On top, there is a dedicated partition only for the page file. I make
weekly an image (Acronis True Image) of the C, and monthly a copy of the D.
(takes some time to backup!), and I'm sure XP works faster that way.
Click to expand...

SNIP---


If the "dedicated partition" is on the same physical hard drive as the OS
you actually may slow down the system since the hard drive has to travel
from the OS partition to the page file partition and back upon every access
to the page file. Same with Program partition and page file partition. The
best access speeds I have found so far are: OS and programs on one physical
hard drive (same partition) and the page file as the FIRST thing written to
a new hard drive (unless you have a program that will defragment the page
file) then copy data files to the drive.

I do a lot of video editing, page production, pamphlets, etc. and have one
desktop, 768 MB RAM, with 2 hard drives set this way: Drive 0 (80 GB) is
partitioned as C-30 GB & D-50 GB. D is only used for long term backup from
the other systems. It is not written to very often. Drive 1 is 160 GB with
a minimum page file of 1.5 GB. This was written immediately after putting
the drive in the system. It normally does not expand above the 1.5 GB size.
Video is written to this drive when I use this system for video editing,
etc. DVD-ROM is Drive R and DVD-Dual Layer RW is Drive W. If the box had
room for another hard drive, I would put in a small fast hard drive for just
the page file but unfortunately it doesn't.

System 2 has 1 GB RAM. 3 physical hard drives and none are partitioned but
drive 1 & 2 are in striped raid array (80 GB & 80 GB for 160 GB). Drive 0
is 80 GB. The page file is on drive 0 - C: in this case as I need the full
speed of the raid array when I do major video work. Significantly speeds up
the system. CD-R is Drive R and CD-RW is drive W. Again, if I had the
physical real-estate in the box I would install another, smaller hard drive
(about 20 GB) just for the page file and allow Windows to control its size.

System 3 has 512 MB RAM - 4 physical hard drives. Drive 0 (C) is 80 GB - OS
and programs only, Drive 1 (D) is 100 GB - page file and long term backup of
other systems files, Drive 2 (E) is 200 GB and is my main storage drive.
Here I copy all work from the other systems for interim storage. Drive 3
(F) is 250 GB and is my long term storage drive. everything I create
eventually find its way to this drive for permanent storage. CD-R is Drive
R.

Once a week the F drive is copied to a USB portable 300 GB drive. This
drive goes off site except when I need to backup. I also have USB
portables, 2-160 GB drives, one is used for all the movies I have created
and one is used for all the documents I have created. These I use when I
travel with my business laptop.

I also have an 80 GB USB that I mirror the OS drives of all my computers to.
That way, if the OS drive goes down, replace the drive, re-image it and I am
back in business within about 1 hour of the drive going down. (If I had a
small os partition the time would not be much less.) These get re-imaged to
the USB drive any time I install new software so I have a current backup.

Just as the OP said, this is how I set up my systems. It may not be the
best for all, but it works for me well. I can only speak from experience.
 
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