Expert: Karl Zick - 6/20/2009

Question
Hi

I am James. I am wondering whether I can use both of my drives (C and D) in my laptop.

You see, my Drive C is almost full, with more than 90% usage. So I am wondering whether I can keep my files in Drive D?

Would it cause any problems?

What are the differences between both drives?

Hmm both my drives are 35GB respectively.

So, could you tell me the best way to use them efficiently? Any suggestions or pointers would be helpful.

Thank you.

Answer
Hi James,

You do not have two hard drives.  You actually have one physical drive that has been partitioned into two pieces which makes it look like two drives.  This is a never-ending source of confusion for people like you and the companies that do it have their heads up the wrong place.

What you should do is move most or all of your personal files (My Documents) to the D:> drive. This incledes pictures, music, video's, etc. as well as letters and spreadsheets.

To answer your questions directly, there is no difference between them and it is actually a good idea to keep your personal stuff in a different place than your system data.  Usually, when a hard drive crashes, it is the system drive that bites the dust - and if your personal files are ina different place you can usually recover them.