C Drive Full? How to Create Some Extra Space Without Any Problem?

Couple of times this week, I was knocked down by my computer with a dark blue screen (called “blue screen of death or BDoS”) citing low memory. The computer runs on Windows XP and was bought in 2005. The whole hard disk capacity is 150 GB and has been partitioned into 4 drives with a 20 GB C drive with system/program files, 40 GB D and E drives, and a 50 GB F drive; the drives other than C used just for storage. Since the purchase, to avoid crashes during transcription, utmost care was taken to not install any unwanted program and not to dump any unnecessary document or file on C drive. However, the C drive still got full. How? By all those system files that Windows XP placed regularly on C drive with security updates and add-ons, both in XP and MS Office, since 2005 apart from the space occupied by whatever emails kept offline locally in the email client. And when the C drive is full, it causes umpteen problems including slowing down the system, low disk space warning, blue screen, or frequent restarts to name a few.

There are two types of file systems on how the data is written on hard drives, FAT32 and NTFS. At the time when I bought the computer, the vendor handed over some printed material containing computer maintenance tips and advised me to keep the C drive in FAT32 format and to keep the size of C drive smaller so that the performance speed won’t get affected as files get piled up when years pass by. That advice ditched me now! My C drive got full! Only a few MBs left.

Now how to create free space on C drive? One needs to either delete unnecessary/unused files or uninstall unwanted programs. So I deleted those unnecessary temporary system files and those in the recycle bin with the disk cleanup tool, which I usually do with routine computer maintenance. System restore files consume more space, hence deleting system restore files except the last restore point helped free up a remarkable amount of disk space. Deleting all those unwanted offline archived emails in the email client freed up a few MBs. Uninstalling any space occupying, unwanted programs through Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs further freed up some space. Transferring some applications from C drive to D drive helped a bit. However, after all these gimmicks the available free space was mere 2 GBs on the hard drive.

Now, what if this freed space is also used up sooner or later? Is that all that can be done to get some space in C drive? Surprisingly no! How about borrowing some space from the adjacent drives? Yes you can! With the help of a partition manager, you can create ample space by moving the partition boundaries and resizing the hard drives. If you have a good partition manager, then it is a child’s play. Do a Google search for a free partition manager. I tried the one that came up on the top of the results, EASEUS free partition manager(personal, home edition).

FAT32 is an outdated format. Extending the boundary of a FAT32 drive into an NTFS drive will throw errors. Hence remember to convert to your FAT32 drive, if any, to NTFS with the same tool before resizing the partitions. I converted my entire C drive into NTFS without any problem or system file error.

Once all the drives are NTFS, you can go ahead to alter the drive boundaries and resize the drives. Instructions for resizing and moving the partitions are pretty much simple. Just drag the boundaries to suit your need and click apply. That’s it. Voila. My C drive is 70 GB now!