How do you combine 2 hard drives??

I'll try to explain this better. My laptop (Sony Vaio) came with 30 GB of space - except 10 is on the C: drive and 20 is on the D: drive. My C: drive is already full and gives me "low disc space" messages. I've already used an Application Mover Software to move some larger program files over to my D: drive, but it's not enough. When I bought the computer - I was told that I could combine the two so that it acts like one large drive. Does anyone know how to do this? OS: Windows XP.

Thanks, Stephanie

 

well, you can try using partitionmagic (http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/), but before you do, MAKE SURE that you move all your programs and everything dependent on the "d:\" to work to the c drive, that way, when "d" disappears, then nothing will go wrong. If you run out of space, then the best thing you can do is temporarily uninstall large programs so everything can fit.

 

Yikes - I feel there is no way in the world I can move all of my D:/ programs and such to my C:/ since I just have a hundred or so MB left on it. Since I am networked - is it possible to delete "My Documents" on C:/ (which is pretty huge with music and pictures and such) and after I use partition magic - I can copy them back??

 

yeah. in fact, you can move all your personal non-program stuff to another hard drive as backup if you need the extra space. just remember that you should uninstall the big programs if you run out of space, since it'll take less time to reinstall that one program than reinstalling 10 small ones.

 

thanks so much. I hope it works. Is there a demo of Partition or do I need to fork out the money for this one magical partition?

 

Strogg,
I just ordered Partition Magic online. I downloaded the demo to see how it worked and it said that I wouldn't lose anything in my D:/ Is this true? I've backed up everything on my D:/ anyway - but just wondering if you know something that I don't.

Stephanie

 

Speaking of external drives, I can vouch for LaCie external firewire drives. Built like houses, and bloody fast too!

Oh, and another tip! If you are networked to a machine that is never turned off, you might want to move some of your files there permenantly (in my case my music collection) to keep clutter on your laptop to a minimum. Playing MP3s from my server is just as fast as from the hard drive.

 

This is all great advice. Thanks so much! I can understand the concern that I only have 30 gigs on my HD, but my laptop is mainly my second computer...so I don't need that much space. My Ddrive is pretty much empty. I can't wait to merge these suckers! Stephanie