I have a Sony laptop (which I bought used) has a 15 gig hard drive.

Its hard drive is partioned into two different systems.

Drive C is FAT32 (7.79 gb); Drive D is NFTS (6.25 gb)

Drive C is almost full. Drive D is empty.

My question(s): Why are there two different drives?

How do I transfer some of my data from C to D.

Can I turn the hard drive into one system only.

And WTF is FAT32 & NFTS?

Thankyou for your help.

BTW, if you do respond, please use layman terms.

Me and computers are like water and oil.

 

What operating system are you running? Also, check download.com for partition management programs. FAT32 & NTFS are file systems. NTFS is better than FAT. I'm sure others will chime in to help.

 

Fat 32 and NTSF refer to the way Windows stores files on your pc. Fat32 was used by 95 thru ME and XP uses NTSF. Files stored in NTSF are easier to access by the operating system.

You could back everything up and repartition the hard drive to one partition and reinstall everything if you wanted.

Maybe some of the smarter guys on here can help you.

 

You makin a funny
FAT 32= File Allocation Table, 32 bit
NTFS= (Windows) NT File System
Sony still partitions the drives on new laptops like that. What their reasoning is, I'll never understand. If you have the original factory restore disks for the machine, you can restore it back to original configuration, with all the correct drivers for the hardware, and set the partition sizes when doing so. I have run into problems with Sony laptops, and the drivers not being upgradeable, particularly with older Win 98 machines.

 

Well, I've learned on some of those PC tech forums that partitioning is something that increases the efficency of a machine. What it does it let's it pretend like there's 2 drives, and can access one while the other is inactive. It limits the area the machine has to search for a given file and therefore, doubles the speed. You know? Complicated. Take my word. What you're supposed to do is when you install a program, locate it on the D: hard disk drive and leave the C: for your operating system and various personal files. Storage goes on D:

Ryan

 

You can also open the DOS prompt and locate the partition and delete it and then expand c: so it takes up the remaining part of the drive giving you the rest of your 15GB. I personally do things in DOS, because I know how things are working.

 

Partitioning won't speed things up,it's still one physical drive.. 2 sperate hard drives will (marginaly) but the main reasons for splitting one drive into multiple drives are:

*Multiple operating systems (and file structures)IE win 98, xp and linux all on the same computer

*With multiple partitions, you can save an image file (compressed copy) of your system drive (C: in this case)

*Smaller backups, my c: drive has 2.45 gigs on it and I can back it up in a couple of minutes.... My Program drive has 30 gigs and my data drive has around 100.

I store all my documents (you can easily move the defaults with XP) an a separate partition, that way if I'm having an issue with my system I can restore my system drive from an image and I still get to keep all my stuff without copying it.

Once again, what operating system are you using?

 

it is one hardrive that is sorta separated so it looks like you have 2 drives. you can save something on the D drive with no problem. just a different way of organizing your stuff.

 

I use to have a sony laptop

the restore disks that it came with was a set of 3 disks.
With these disks, they DID NOT give you the option to manipulate the partition sizes, nor did they give me the option to reduce down to one partition (C).

I was stuck with the stupid configuration of 4gb on the C drive and the remaining 11gb on (D) drive. I understand that it is not GOOD PRACTICE to store data on the root partition, HOWEVER, things happen sometimes, not EVERYONE is a computer geek that is watching where every byte that gets stored...in laymans term if you don't watch out, over time The C drive will fill up, hence slow down your system, hence, make your system all but usable.

The way I have my personal system now is with a C and D drive however I gave C more breathing room. It is good practice to keep C just for the operating system, you have to remember our friendly neighborhood hackers/virus writers. sometime you need to reload the pc if it is just too jacked up. if you have all your junk on D then no bothers, just reload the OS and tell those virus writers to stick it where the sun don't shine!!!

It is faster to have the seperate partitions, the inodes/pointers to all files/directories are not so crunched together, in short your system will not have to look thru the whole drive to find one file you stored, with dual partitions, it basically say, COOL, I only have to check this piece of the disk which makes my job a whole lot faster. Kind of like looking in that one junk drawer EVERYONE has,and your saying "DAM I KNOW IT IS IN HERE!", where as if you would of stored the papers with papers, pens with pens, you would of found what you wanted so much faster.

like someone said earlier, you just have to LEARN how to save your personal stuff, and load applications/games on the D drive so you can start to even it out. I would suggest maybe doing a restore to default to start on a clean slate..thats one thing that was cool about the restore disks, just pop them in and BAM it is done.