harddrive question ?

[gavin.barrass1]

Ive got two harddrive's in my pc,20 gig +40 gig.the 20 is set to ide master and the 40 ide slave.my pc as all the operating system and programs and everything else on the 20 gig drive.Is there any way to merge the two in to one?so its like having 60 gig and not 20 n 40 .or to get the computer to use both as one.coz at the mo the 20 is nearly full so my pc is slow and the 40 is just sat there doin nowt.

[Rob Pomeroy]

What is your 20GB hard drive full up of?  If the main culprit is your Documents folder, you can fairly easily relocate that to the 40GB hard drive (and then defragment).

[gavin.barrass1]

Not to sure ! Just had a check and the documents and settings folder is only 5 gig ,programs is larger than 136 MB,and the windows folder is larger than 256MB.Some how i dont think that adds up to 20 gig?so were the rest is i dont know.I only did a fresh install a week ago aswell.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Hmm.  Perhaps something is hiding on your system without your permission.  In Windows Explorer: Tools-->Folder Options-->View.  Check "Show hidden files and folders".  Then start from the root of your C: drive, and find out which folder is using up all the space.

[gavin.barrass1]

Im not using internet explorer,Im using BT yahoo internet browser.So i went in to control pannel>folder options>show all hidden files.Then i went to drive c/ma HDD and the only extra folder that was there was one saying $vault$ 378 KB so i opend it and there was nowt there.In the documents /settings folder there were only one more folder called default user and it was only 280 KB and when i opend it ,it had the usual /favorites /start menu/desktop/ so i dont know if ive done the right thing by going into the controll pannel and if thats what you ment by showing all hdden files and if it was were do i go from here.I fogot to mention im new to all this so please dont baffle me with tecnical jargon,i understand the basics o.k,cheers

[GX1_Man]

Is there any way to merge the two in to one?

Back to the original question. No you can not  

[gavin.barrass1]

So what do you suggest? For some reason the 40 gig drive just wont be set as a master,the only setting it will work on is the safety setting only allowing 32 gig accesibill.I dont know why ,and even on that setting it shows up as IDE primary slave! Thats by its self,if i try putting the 20 gig in aswell it doesnt boot up at all,it picks the 20 gig up as primary even with the jumpers set to slave.Ive even tried going in to cmos and entering the 40 first then the 20 but when i come out and try n start it just stays on the very first screen were you can choose to go in to set up n that.So what do you suggest i do?

[GX1_Man]

Suggestions:

1) Debride the 20 gig drive. If programs are what's taking the space up, remove and reinstall to the D Drive
Use CCleaner to get some debris off as well - temp files, etc..

2) We have no idea what operating system, or the make of the drives or machine, so I would suspect the 40 gig drive is FAT32 and that gets a 32 gig drive. Using Fdisk, you may be able to create another 8 usable gigs on that drive.

If you post some pertinent details, we may be able to have more pertinent suggestions  

[gavin.barrass1]

My 20 gig HDD is a maxtor 32049h3,and the 40 gig is a seagate st340014a,im using windows xp pro sp1,my cpu is p3 500mhz,as for the mother board i havent a clue but i recken its pretty old coz theres only a slot 1 p3 on it and nothing else to upgrade to.the 32 gig im on about?on the back of the 40 gig drive were the jumpers go theres the master setting,the cable select setting then a blank two pins that do nothing then the last two jumper pins are that(32 gig) dont know why?just now ive been to seagate website downloaded there disk wizzard,started it and did what it said word for word and every thing was cush till it turned off to re boot and to give me a chance to change the jumpers.So jumpers changed every thing wired back up i turn the computer on and it did the same thing it did on day one.and thats,on the first screen that comes up were it detects the hardware,it says IDE primary master(press f4 to skip).......      and thats it .It stays there and does nothing.if i change the jumper back to the 32 gig setting it comes on says primary IDE ........ and underneath the 32 gig drive comes up as slave and it boots up perfect.in fact im on it now.the 40 gig drive in but only giveing me 32 and the 20 unplugged.I cant understand it but i only now the basics anyway so maybe you know now youve got the full picture?or its ntfs not fat 32,could that be it,or maybe somet to do with my cmos or bios?any way any ideas would be gratefull thanks.

[GX1_Man]

Download and run Everest Home to identify the motherboard make and model. You'll get a LOT more information as well.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

[gavin.barrass1]

I went to the website and downloaded the program,but when i started to run it once it had detected all the components the computer froze and turned itself off.Any other programs that are like that one?

[GX1_Man]

Try this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

[gavin.barrass1]

that works fine now exactly what do you need to know?

[GX1_Man]

Computer or motherboard make and model?

[gavin.barrass1]

my motherboard is a Biostar m6vbe ID 02/23/1999-692-596-8671-2a6l-gb09c-00,my cpu is a pentium 3 500 MHZ,and the chipset is a VIA vt82c693 apollo pro plus.The motherboards got 3 isa,4pci,1 agp,3 dimm,auido.hopefully thats what you wanted to know and now ya know it you might be able to come up with a solution to fix this problem,