New Experience, Need Help.

[SolidHandle]

Hello everyone,

A client contacted me about her computer telling me iTunes was giving an error, it said that it could not update her iTunes because there was not enough memory on the hard drive. She said that the problem is that she barely has anything installed on her computer and that it must be iTunes fault.

I inspected the laptop, it's an ASUS brand and found that the hard drive is partitioned by the manufacturer with around 30gigs on C: (has windows) and the other 70-80 on D: .

I decided the best route would be to uninstall iTunes from C: and then re install it to D: . I also created a new music folder on D: and transferred her music to it, as well as changing the folder in iTunes to this.

I was in an area where we had no internet connection so I had no way of checking if the error had been fixed but she left pleased.

Around four weeks later she contacted me and said the error is still happening and wondered if I could come in and see what is still wrong. I am hoping it's a new error, but if it's the same error I am very unaware of how to fix the issue.

What would you suggest I do? I do not have much experience with partitioning hard drives, but would it be possible to recombine the drive in a short period of time?

Thanks You

 

[Paul Rodgers]

The best way is to get rid of the stupid partition setup. I would utilize a clone tool and clone both partitions to a new drive. Then clone c: to the original and make sure it uses the whole drive. Then move data from d: to c: and fix any problems.

 

[Craka]

There are advantages to having the OS reside on one partition and data on another. ie corrupt system, complete reinstall of windows on that partition alone and the data will remain on the other data partition.

As far as OP is concerned, you can just add a folder the D partition and than using the properties of the existing folder containing media use the 'move' option to point to the other folder on D, and allow it to copy the content across.

 

[Technotch]

i would simply increase the c drive if I were u using easeus partition master. the space will be coming from the d drive of course. but if she doesnt have much space to spare, then i would suggest she get an external drive for her music or get her hdd upgraded. an upgrade will of course require that you backup or clone the existing one. good luck

 

[Paul Rodgers]

There are advantages to having the OS reside on one partition and data on another. ie corrupt system, complete reinstall of windows on that partition alone and the data will remain on the other data partition.

As far as OP is concerned, you can just add a folder the D partition and than using the properties of the existing folder containing media use the 'move' option to point to the other folder on D, and allow it to copy the content across.

The problem is nobody accounts for updates when they do that. There are also tons of programs that refuse to install to anything other than c: which makes things tough without workarounds. After having to fix that mistake a few times I just decided it isn't worth the hassle of having it done.

I have not seen a manufacturer do something like that in about 3-4 years because it causes more trouble than its worth. Just about every manufacturer configures computers with the hidden recovery partition and the Windows/System partition. There is no data partition anymore.

 

[Craka]

True, all depends on the environment it's set for.

 

[SolidHandle]

Thank you all for your replies, I would like to do this with as little as much time as possible since I did not fix it the first time I am doing this free of charge and would not want to spend time copying everything to a new drive and back.

i would simply increase the c drive if I were u using easeus partition master. the space will be coming from the d drive of course.

Is this difficult to do? How long does this process take? Is there a chance the hard drive could be locked down by the manufacturer ?

Thanks!

 

[Rob_NNCC]

You can also use the Gparted or Parted Magic live Linux disks. This will take anywhere from a few min to an hour or so (for a 100 or 120 GB hdd), depending on how much data is in the D drive, where it is in the drive, and how much space you are moving around.

This is not too hard to do.

EDIT: No chance the ASUS would make it so that you can not do this. The biggest got-ya would be HDD corruption or the program locking up partway through. (Backup before you attempt)