Stump the PC Club is a free tech-advice column written by members of the North Orange County Computer Club, which has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. And don’t forget to stop by the Gadgetress’ home for the PC Club, at ocregister.com/link/pcclub, to find out how to ask a question and read past answers.
QUESTION: I have a Sony Vaio with a Pentium 4 CPU, 2.4 GHz and 992MB of RAM. The operating system is Microsoft Windows XP (Home Edition) version 2002. I am trying to find out how to transfer some of the stored data on the C Drive to the D Drive because there is no more space available on the C Drive. Your help will be much appreciated. ~ Wynn
PC Club: Most Sony Vaio PCs that I’m familiar with have only one hard drive, Wynn, the C drive. The D drive is usually the CD/DVD or optical drive.
To tell what “D” is, open “My Computer” on your desktop and at the top click “View,” then “Arrange Icons by” and select “Type.” This will arrange the icons for your drives into categories.
If your D drive is listed under the category labeled “Devices with Removable Storage,” then it is a CD/DVD drive. Unfortunately, you can’t simply move files to it. But you can write (often called “burn”) CDs or DVDs assuming the computer has the right hardware (a recordable CD/DVD drive, indicated with a RW or R, as in CD-RW or DVD-R) and software. Windows XP has some built-in CD burning capability but it is rather primitive. If you’re in doubt as to the capabilities of your drive, check the documentation that came with your computer or check with the manufacturer.
If you do indeed have a CD or DVD burner and necessary software, you can copy files to a blank disc. This is one way to make a backup of your files but remember, it won’t free up space on your C drive unless you subsequently delete the files after you backed them up to a blank disk. And don’t forget to check the disc to make sure the files were copied over before deleting the original files on your computer.
If you conclude that the D drive is an optical drive, there are two options for freeing space on the C drive. You can remove unnecessary files from your C drive or purchase an external hard drive.
Here are some steps that you can take that will free some space on your C Drive.
If you use Outlook Express, you should clean out your e-mail folders periodically. Many of us have too many messages in the Deleted or other folders that can be permanently deleted.- Use Windows’ “Disk Cleanup” tool. Find this by going to “My Computer,” right click the “C” drive icon and select “Properties.” In the middle of the window, select the “Disk Cleanup” button and then select the files you want to compress or clean off your computer. (Click image on right to enlarge)
- Download the free “CCleaner” software from www.ccleaner.com and use it to delete all temporary files, clean out the Recycle Bin and to remove other unnecessary items.
After performing the steps above, you can move files to your D drive if it is indeed a hard drive, or to an external drive to free up additional space. External drives are available in any store that sells computer supplies or online as well.
Here’s an example for moving files from your “My Pictures” folder to an external drive assuming that E is the drive letter assigned to your external drive. This process applies to moving the contents of any other folder as well. If your D drive is indeed a hard drive, then you would substitute the letter D below to use that drive.
1. Open your my Documents folder
2. Look for and open the My Pictures folder
3. Select one or more files or folders that you want to move. You can select multiple items by pressing your Control key while selecting items with your mouse.
4. In the left side of the window, you will see an entry labeled “Move this File”, “Move this Folder” or “Move these Items” depending on what you selected. Click the Move entry. If you don’t see this entry, click the Folders button at the top of the My Pictures folder to change views.
5. In the window that opens, select a destination such as your E drive. You can also select a sub-folder in the E drive or even create a new sub-folder.
6. Click the Move button to complete the operation.
– Ed Schwartz, NOCCC member and PC Instructor. View his blog at edwardns.com/blog
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