multiple drives

[James41]

Hi All,
I have windows95 running on my C drive but also have drives D,E and F. I am also running windows 3.1 from the C drive as I have some favourite programs which won't run properly elsewhere. I have two folders on the c drive, windows and wimdows95. I need to create some more space (free space down to 70Mb) and was wondering about moving the windows folder to another drive. Would this foul up the system altogether or would the computer (old 486) cope by knowing the new location on its own?
I could move other programs but most are quite small(less than 10MB) and I want to regain about 100Mb or so after losing that when running Scandisk. Windows 95 is about 256MB and windows about 100 MB. The smaller programs don't seem to add up to the remaining space on the drive (allowing for the swapfile). Why is this? Is there some hidden usage of storage somewhere that we can't see?

James

[Dodge]

You can safely move those folders. When I use to install Windows 95 on a smaller hard drive I would delete the Windows Folder from the C:\windows directory.

The only thing you run into is you need to keep you windows CD close that way if you install any programs or hardware that might need something from there, it can get them off the CD instead. A bit of a pain at times, but will Clear up alot of space on your HD.

[smurfy]

James, I think Dodge may have misinterpreted your setup here.

C:\Windows is your Windows 3.1 install folder, C:\Windows95 is your Win95 Install folder.
IT IS NOT SAFE TO MOVE EITHER OF THESE if you want to continue to use either of these Operating systems.

If you have any folder on there that contains the Windows setup & Cab files these are safe to remove as per Dodge's instructions.

In your situation I would consider do this:

Uninstall ALL software from both 3.1 and 95 and reinstall to the D, E and F drives retaining C drive for operating system and shared files only.


As for why is your reported free space less than total drive capacity less file sizes of all contents?

This is quite technical but it relates to the Cluster Size defined in the File Allocation Tables (FAT).
Microsoft Article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q67321&)
MS-DOS allocates disk space for files in units of one or more sectors; these units are called "clusters" or "allocation units." On any MS-DOS disk, a 1-byte file is allocated 1 cluster of disk space, wasting the unused area of the cluster. A file that is 3.2 clusters large is given 4 clusters. Overall, a smaller cluster size means less waste.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:azSTXDpWnZUC:www.oreilly.com/reference/dictionary/terms/F/File_Allocation_Table.htm+FAT+Table+file+size+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Cached page from Google that explains quite well.

So basically, any leftover space in each used cluster is unable to be reused and is not reported as free space by Windows. This is one of the main differences between early Windows/Dos versions and Win95b and above. Win 3.1 will only support FAT16 which dictates large cluster sizes which dictates more wasted space. 95b or later support FAT32 which allow smaller cluster sizes and therefore more efficient use of HDD space.
This is why Windows Defragmentation tool is so important. As well as making file retrieval faster, it helps keep files efficiently stored in appropriate clusters and should (in normal circumstances) result in some recovered disk space.

[James41]

Hi Dodge and Smurfy,
Thanks for the replies. I think that you have a good point Smurfy because my windows95 was installed (not by me) in such a way that I believe there are some shared files which is why I was cautious about having the two folders on different drives.

[James41]

...to continue..(sorry about the break).... I think I will move as much as possible as you suggest even though some files/folders are only 1 or 2 Mb. Presumably I must not move the DOS folder for the same reason as keeping the two windows folders together. If space has been wasted by small programs due to partially wasted clusters, will I get all of that back when I move the program to another drive? Will I have to defrag to get it back? If I move a program do I have to change the target reference on the properties menu for that program , as shown after right-clicking on the programs menu, or will this all be taken care of automatically by the move procedure?

Many thanks,
James