I know very little about computers and hard ware but I am aware that my hard drive is split in to two C:/ and D:/
I am using windows xp home edition
I have 60GB PATA HDD (what ever that is)
512MB DDR2 (Support dual-channel)- (Don't understand that either...lol)
I am just typing up what's on my Acer Aspire notebook.

What i am wanting to do is be able to utilise drive D:/ so I have more space for my programs.
I understand that I can simply just save things to my D:/ drive but I have programs installed on C:/ that require a lot of memory
The programs i use are: Bryce 6 and Poser 6
These are installed on drive C:/ and i have about 1.66 GB free on that drive and 24GB on D:/
Can I merge the two together so C:/ which I use these programs on is big enough to run poser and bryce without freezing in the middle of it all?
Or should I get more memory installed.
I hope this is something you all can understand because I am really confusing myself here.
Thanks in advance

Well You can free up your hard drive by using a program called partition magic if you are truly running out of space this program will allow you to merge the C and D together as one C drive, but i wouldn't do it, because depending upon your system the D drive consist of recovery software for your acer which stores driver software but it also may store your backup copy of windows as well. If you have a recovery windows cd and the recovery isn't stored on your D drive then it's ok erase the content in the D drive and merge the two and allow more disc space.

As for it freezing it depends. Adding more ram helps, but also keep in mind that if any of the programs that you are using requires a lot of graphics then your video card comes into play in dealing with that stuff. If you have a weak graphics card and you are trying to use a program that's graphic hungry then you maybe also looking at a grpahic card upgrade as well if this is a desktop pc, if it isn't your stuck with what you have in terms of graphics card because you can't change out the grpahics card in a laptop in generel.

I would be careful. The D partition could be your recovery partition. Although 24GB does seems a lot.

Gparted is a live cd which you can reallocate space from one partition to another. Or partition magic.

Before reallocating space, you should back up everything, just in case it goes wrong.

Before posting try google. Backup. Use anti virus software.

"I have 60GB PATA HDD (what ever that is)"

a PATA hard drive is also termed IDE. PATA means Paralell-ATA. The drive can only be read from but not written to at the same time. SATA hard drive on the other hand means Serial-ATA......the drive can be written to and read from at the same time. Hence a SATA HDD is generally quicker.

GParted (as Clive said above) would do the trick. its FREE too ! It works well. but being "a beginner"......

like, i used GParted just yesterday to shrink some partitions on a working dual-boot setup and the WinME boot partition was awarded a new Drive letter after the partition reorganisation LOL. Consequently XP was the only OS to boot >>>> goodbye WinME :( It took me all arvo to effect a repair job on the dual-boot. It was good >>>> i learnt something LOL.

before you merge/delete partitions, BACKUP important data

:)

.
Central Coast NSW Aussie

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Ok...hmmm.
How do i find out info about my graphics card?
I have a laptop so I guess if it's not strong enough then having lots of memory is not going to make a difference what so ever because i wont be able to up grade it...is that right Cobra?
Clive - How do I backup lol I know what you are thinking...is this woman for real?
I am assuming save everything to disk?
I have a lot of programs that were purchased online as downloads so i don't have disks.
I guess put those onto disks yes...the installers?
I didn't get any disks or CDs when i purchased my laptop..i created a startup disk when I was prompted to when I first started it up...is this something i need ie recovery?
As far as merging...instead of merging the two together can i just...ummm move some of the space from D:/ to C:/ that way i still have the 2 partitions but one is bigger?
Would this work, can i do it without backing up?

Ideally, you should backup before resizing partitions.
So, copy my documents to dvd or better still buy an external usb drive & copy to that.
As for the downloaded programs, hopefully you will have saved the file to you disk somehwere. Save these.
You should probably save the files you created with these programs, that would be somewhere under c:program files Bryce 6 and Poser 6.
You might want to save you internet favourites, so I use the Files & settings transfer wizard, & save to a folder & copy that to a dvd/usb drive.

These are just precautions, you probably won't have a problem, but this is just in case.
I suppose the best thing would be a drive imaging software like Acronis or Ghost, then you can clone to an external usb drive. That way, if things did go wrong, you can restore the hard disk very quickly.

Gparted, has a graphical interface, all you should need to do, is move the slider.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larr...

http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/

Before posting try google. Backup. Use anti virus software.

Buy yourself a externial H.D. ! They are so affordable for even a large capacity drive. My Desktop has a internial drive 250 G.B. ,however I wanted to have the ability to back up my entire drive onto another drive .I already suffered a major O/S failure when I had a nasty piece of spyware or a trojan destroy the originial install. No retore patition would work becasue I had lost the administrator password ,which I needed to access the drive D :-( Right after X-mas of 07 I went to a electronic's store and I was about to buy a Western Digitial e-book when I found a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB 320G.B.7200rpm for only $68.00 on sale ! Now first you need to check how big of a H.D. your BIOS will accept. WinXP has a built in Backup utility or you could purchase a inexpensive application for this purpose. Its the easiest way to completely restore a O/S thats really messsed up ,my system restore utility never would work ,I believe it has something to due with my security suite not allowing a restore after its updated the virus definitions ,which is at least once a week ? What ever you decide to do, good luck to you !
Take Care Nick

Jackdog

If you have a reference to point to concerning your statements on the differences between PATA & SATA I would very much like to see them. I wasn't aware that SATA drives could both read and write simultaneously.

I was aware that SATA drives have the potential for faster transfers and longer thinner cables and that they are hot swappable. IDE drives can share a controller with a second drive. If this happens only one drive at a time can access the controller. Perhaps this is what you were thinking of?

Memory makes a diff in normal computing but in terms of graphics that's where your graphics card comes it. Adding more ram never hurts just don't expect a huge performance boost out of it.

downlaod a free program called gpu-z you can find it by doing a google search.

OTH
"If you have a reference to point to concerning your statement"

no written reference OTH........by word of mouth. someone told me 3 or 4 years ago IRL when i asked what is SATA and he said "simply put" >>>> SATA HDDs transmit read AND write signals along its cable at the sametime and hence, the HDD does the 2 things at the same time.....much like your household telephone. PATA on the other hand can only read OR write at any one time.

that's the way i remember it being said.

i apologise for misleading anyone on this forum, thru my ATA illiteracy......

.
Central Coast NSW Aussie

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.