Hey pakratz - Welcome to the forum.

Why do you want to do that? It's not too difficult but, in most cases anyway, having two partitions at 250GB each is the better scenario.

Just want to make sure you are doing the right thing before we go ahead and provide instructions.

Cheers...Jim

Hey pakratz,

Hard drive size: The manufacturers use '1000' as their base number for calculating hard drive capacity - Windows uses '1024' for its base number. So, there is always going to be a variance between manufacturers' advertized hard drive capacities and what Windows actually reports. There is also the Master File Table, which is created when a hard drive is formatted - think of the MFT as being somewhat similar to the 'index' section of a text book, it lets Windows know exactly where a particular file is located on the hard drive. The RAW size of the hard drive, as advertized on the box, does not make allowances for the MFT.

On the computer running slow: Three main culprits here; too much detritus, malware, too many background processes running. Sounds as though you have eliminated the first two possibilities so that leaves us with the third - too many background processes running. This problem grows exponentially with the age of the computer, and as you install more and more programs. So many of the programs set themselves to auto-start with Windows - in the vast majority of cases this is totally unnecessary and is simply wasting system resources which, in turn, makes for an unresponsive computer. Security related programs in particular are resource hungry - install too many and the computer will slow noticeably.

So, the remedy is to uninstall any superfluous security software and prevent non-essential programs from auto-starting with Windows.

The preferred method is via the program's own settings/preferences. Many of the programs which start with Windows will place an icon in the System Tray (or notification area) at the far right of the Taskbar. Right click on those icons for non-essential programs and look for any options that lead to Settings/Preferences/Options. Then look for any setting/option which will allow you to disable the auto-start feature.

The next step, for those programs which either do not include that option or do not provide easy access to options/settings, is to disable the auto-start feature via Window's 'System Configuration' tool: Go to [b:1zaclbpy]Start>Run[/b:1zaclbpy], type [b:1zaclbpy]msconfig[/b:1zaclbpy] into the Run dialogue box and then click [b:1zaclbpy]OK[/b:1zaclbpy]. Now click on the [b:1zaclbpy]Startup[/b:1zaclbpy] tab across the top of the window to access a list of processes auto-starting with Windows. From there, each startup item can be assessed and disabled or left enabled.

If you need help assessing which items are necessary and which are not, just provide us with a list and we'll advise accordingly.

Now, to get back to your original question: The best way to utilize the two partition setup is to maintain all system and installed program files on the main (C) partition, and all personal data (documents, music, pictures, etc.) on the secondary 'D' partition. The simplest way would be to create new folders on the D partition and name them accordingly; My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. Then drag and drop those files from the personal folders on 'C' to the corresponding folders on 'D'.

I would be interested to know what the 93.8MB used space on 'D' actually consists of. If you go to 'My Computer' and double left click on the 'D' drive you will see a list of folders and files - what are the largest ones called??

Cheers...Jim