Help with Hard disc space management & Itunes

[viper]

Hi Guys,

Have a slight problem which goes this way.My comp has 4 partitions divided as under

1> C drive - 25GB (only 1GB free)
2> D drive - 120GB (84 GB free)
3> E drive - 88GB (13GB free)
4> F drive - 180 GB (178GB free)

I have 2 Hard discs 120Gb & 360Gb. How do I increase capacity of "c" drive without formatting it if possible

My problem is by default settings all downloads/programs & music get saved to "C" drive which keeps getting full. I have transferred all the pictures & videos which occupy a lot of space to "E" drive. I observed that Itunes (My Music was occupying approx 4Gb.

How do I shift the My Music to say "E" drive and make sure that all future music downloads and additions get saved there.

Will appreciate all the help.

Viper

[dinar]

What programs do you use to download, If it's torrent dowlaoder, than some softwares have the option of using other drives than the once it's loaded on, or you can just reinstall the programs in a different drive so that it will take the difault download folder to be in that drive[ there is al ways an option while installing to choose the drive for installation] , this will be the easiest way to solve your problem without touching the partitions.
What OS are you using? if windows XP, than there is something called partition magic, which can be used to increase the size of the partition without formating.

[viper]

Hi,

Sorry I forgot to mention am using Vista Pro. I actually dont download much but keep adding music thru Mp3 Cd's and importing them to my library in Itunes. I figured out the settings for future but how do I transfer what has already been done without losing my files.

All my music 65GB is physically stored on "E" drive.

Viper

[dinar]

If you are using vista than there is a built in function to do the partitioning, Right click on the 'computer' icon in the 'start' menu, than click on 'Manage', in the left hand side panel open up the 'storage' category and click on 'Disk manage'. Here you'll find partitions of your disk, right click on the partition and you'll get a lot of option to 'shrink' or 'extend' volume , you can increase the partition of your drive.
I did not understand the question..do you want the file in the My Music section to be used in the new drive where you will install the program? or just transfer them to a new drive.
You can just cut the file from your old section and paste it in the new drive where you want. and there are always small files in the setup folder of the programs which keep an index of the files to be opened through the program [usually txt file] you can copy those in the new installation and the new installation will detect the files .[try this first by copy paste first with out deleting anything first, as it works in Xp , i Have not tried it with Vsita and also ,I do not know if it works with your software.

[rippergeo]

you can change settings in itunes.
go to edit preferences on the main itunes screen
chose advanced tab from the options available
in the sub tab general, the first option is to change location of itunes music folder.

then you can change the location of the itunes folder to your external HDD.

you might lose all your ratings of the songs though.

save your playlists first.
hope this was the answer you were looking for!

[hondadude]

Originally Posted by viper

Hi Guys,

How do I shift the My Music to say "E" drive and make sure that all future music downloads and additions get saved there.

Viper

One of the ways to do this would be create My Music folder as a symbolic link to a physical folder on E drive. That way you don't have to change any settings in any of the apps and storage will come from E. I did that on my XP for Pictures. I don't have Vista/XP right now so I can't provide the exact instructions.

[normally_crazy]

Here you go Viper - iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Music folder

[Xehaust]

Originally Posted by rippergeo

you can change settings in itunes.
go to edit preferences on the main itunes screen
chose advanced tab from the options available
in the sub tab general, the first option is to change location of itunes music folder.

then you can change the location of the itunes folder to your external HDD.

you might lose all your ratings of the songs though.

save your playlists first.
hope this was the answer you were looking for!

Spot on, but the playlists wont be affected as itunes updates the song locations on it's own.

Originally Posted by viper

Hi,

Sorry I forgot to mention am using Vista Pro. I actually dont download much but keep adding music thru Mp3 Cd's and importing them to my library in Itunes. I figured out the settings for future but how do I transfer what has already been done without losing my files.

All my music 65GB is physically stored on "E" drive.

Viper

Iif you want all the songs in itunes to be into a central location (your itunes music folder you just selected), you just have to click on Advanced - Consolidate library.

All your songs from all the different folders will be copied into the itunes folder you have specified.
(All the songs which are present in the itunes library whether old or new)
Thereby all songs will now be present in this one folder.

Hope this solves your problem.

[viper]

Hi,

Thanks guys will try out the suggestion later this week and see what works, Will update the progress on the thread.

Viper

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Here you go Viper - iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Music folder

I did exactly what was written and it works flawlessly like there has been no change. I managed to free 4 GB on my C drive.

[abhibh]

Clean up System Restore points and use disc cleanup.

[ashthedivx]

Well, with so many suggestion i am sure you must have been able to get your music shifted to the desired drive. However, for space management i would you to take a look at small utility named JDisk Report which let you view the exact MB space a folder is taking up, space hogging files. @ here (screenshots attached showing how it works)

Then run a Microsoft disk clean up wizard which you can access after right clicking the desired drive.

Go to control panel, "add and remove programs" and click "sort by last used" and uninstall programs which you do not use longer.

VOILA you have just recovered lots of space !!!

Cheers

[viper]

Hi Guys,

Very recently I tried to expand the volume on C drive with no success. I called my comp engineer on Friday who said that I would first have to shrink the "E" drive partition before I could expand "C" drive.

I have 2 Hard Disks

Disc 1 - 120 GB divided as "C" - 30GB & "E" 90 GB
Disc 2 - 300 GB divided as "D" 120 GB & "F" 180 GB

The engineer formatted "E" drive and thats when all hell broke loose. The computer would not restart and would keep getting a error "missing operating system".

He tried recovery and somehow the computer rebooted but the formatted partition would not get restored. After a couple of tries it is finally restored in the original size but am still unable to increase capacity of "C" drive which I need to asap.

Am attaching screen shots for your reference. Pladvise as to how I can increase size of "C" drive without formatting the disk.

Viper

[merve_extreme]

Is C your Vista OS partition ?

[viper]

Hi,

Yes. I am using only Vista and not dual OS. I am sure you can see from the snapshots I do not have any space to even run updates.


Viper

Edit - Just noticed the snapshots dont show up.