"How did this happen!?"

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

Hi $Customer.

Your hard drive is full. And as you can see, Windows XP cannot fucntion with 129MB of free space.

You ask me how this happened? Well, I'll tell you:

Some braindead moronic asshat at Sony decided years ago that it would be an awesome idea for them to sell computers with 1 hard drive divided up into 2 partitions.  They made the C: drive (you know, the drive where everything important is stored) a piddly size of 13GB, and partitioned the remaining 55GB as D:. Which you probably didnt even know you had, since the whole D: drive had nothing on it.

And you were crazy enough to buy it.  So I honestly do not have much sympathy for you. How can I fix it? Well, on some of these Sony's the recovery media will let you specify the size of the C: drive during recovery. Hopefully yours is one of them. Or we can fool around with the partition system on the drive and hope nothing gets eaten.

Next time, invest in some quality hardware. $deity knows Sony is no such animal.

Comments

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

my laptop harddrive is just for the OS and the antivirus - WoW, games, whatever are all on the external - I fail to understand why they can't put at least 250GB HD on the lappy, or the partitioning thing... that's what recovery disks are for!

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

All the recovery discs will do is rebuild the same boneheaded partition scheme.

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

lovely. what exactly is the point of the partition scheme???

[jecook]

The recovery software that came with my vaio back in 2002 did let you specify the size of the c drive, although you had to select a custom restore to get that option.

As for the longevity of sony's stuff? The machine still *works*, but there are a few things that just don't do what I'd like it to do- play divx encoded files is one of them. (Apparently due to a conflict with the shite-tastic video drivers that I can't upgrade and DX9) That, and the batteries are shot on it.
*ponders tossing linux on it again for grins and giggles to see what happens*

[argonel.livejournal.com]

It isn't a bonehead partition scheme if you put /home and /usr/local on the second partition. It definately become boneheaded when you use that partition scheme and install windows on it.

I wonder if it didn't come from setting up a master image on a 20Gb with a semi reasonable recovery partition, then using the same image when they upgaded the hard drive to a 65GB model.

[ucnu112.livejournal.com]

Norton PartitionMagic (http://www.symantec.com/norton/partitionmagic)?

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are certainly solutions. But this is the sort of thing that should never have happened in the first place. I cannot imagine what the thought process behind this plan was. It doesn't make any sense at all.

[ucnu112.livejournal.com]

We had the same problem as you mentioned in some HP laptops we had a couple years ago. I think this time, it was Corporate that set the partition sizes. When XP SP2 rolled out, the laptops started failing, and the problem was traced to too small of a C: Drive. A little PartitionMagic later, and all was well.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

PartedMagic (http://partedmagic.com/wiki/PartedMagic.php)

[dukesnorre.livejournal.com]

Maybe they just wanted to keep their data on the happy drive in stead of the sad drive. If they use data from the sad drive they might become sad as well!

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

How can I fix it? Well, on some of these Sony's the recovery media

Not to be obtuse or anything, but did you suggest, uh, moving some files from the full partition to the empty one?

[pikaporeon.livejournal.com]

This this this.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

"wait, you mean they wont be in my documents anymore? BUT HOW WILL I FIND THEM?!"

So yeah, I tried that line already.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Create a shortcut to the drive. Put the shortcut inside My Documents.

"Here is a magical folder on your computer which has more room in it than the folder it's in! We designed this technology by reverse engineering Mary Poppins' handbag."

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

Indeed--I'm running XP on a 60GB drive with a 10GB system partition, (granted, that seems to be marginal--anyone around know whether it's safe to deleted that f-ing huge 'SoftwareDistribution' folder? I reinstalled recently due to other issues, and the SP3 files are apparently gobbling over a gig there in addition to wherever they installed to)--thing is, I'm also smart enough to put my data files on another partition--as well as my games and other such large installs (They give that 'install directory' option for a reason, after all).

[gholam.livejournal.com]

SoftwareDistribution folder is Windows Update cache. You can safely delete it (stop automatic updates service before you do), Windows Update will re-download whatever it needs.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

FYI - 1 TB drives are like $150 now. 250GB drives are like $50. Even laptop drives are sub $100 for 200GB drives.

[wbyonder.livejournal.com]

Nice to know that this is a Sony problem. I'm about to dump a similar machine with a similar problem for a new machine. Sony is not on the list of replacement options. techsupport just inadvertently provided me with techsupport. I find this incredibly entertaining as I usually just enjoy reading about you bitching about your jobs and lu$er stories.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

If you're talking laptop, I am buying IBM T series laptops from here on out (A used T60p is a great value). For desktops, I build my own (http://www.mattcaron.net/projects/core_2_quad/).

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

My ASUS has the same partition scheme. I like it, because I'd have done so myself if they hadn't delivered it pre-partitioned.
The real problem is that if you use any M$ apps, they'll stubbornly try to save to the "My Documents" folder on the smaller partition anyway. Meh. Good thing I don't.

;)

[seaofdestiny.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks to the comments on this entry, you know now how to redirect "My Documents" to the other partition.

Then only those apps that hard-code the path to "My Documents" rather than asking Windows for it will break.

[salavora.livejournal.com]

I normaly use a similar partition scheme (20gig for C, 180 for D).

Of course all my Dokuments are on D!
That was the whole reason for that idea after all!

Because once upon a time ... I had to reinstall XP on a monthly basis on that machine. (heh, I loved to play around and broke it very often. I loved emule and the rest of the bunch and was rather careless what I downloaded and so on ... )

And properly backing up all my files every time (If I was able to access them, *whot for Knopix*), then install XP angain and THEN put the files back .... no thank you!

Just formating C, reinstalling XP and welcome back dear files ^^

Unfortunatly most games won't like this behaviour and I had to reinstall some of them too every time, but then again.. better reinstalling some of them and still keep my Scores and all then reinstalling all of them and saing my scores good bye.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

We Unix guys have been doing this for years. /home is a separate partition (as are, historically, /usr/local, /var, and /tmp as well). Ergo, you can blow away / on a reload and not lose anything.

The only time I've had to pull everything off and put it back was when I switched my laptop to full disc encryption, which required a complete relaying out of partitions. 750GB external drive to the rescue!

[salavora.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just remembered:

Isn't it possible to hardcode the place of the "My Documents" folder for M$ Products?

And even if not, you can add your own folders to the ... (whats that called in english... damn...)
If you select "save as" in any M$ App, you will get a new little window. The Box on the left, with "Desktop, My Dokuments" and so on is what I mean.
Into this box you can get EVERY Folder you want (unfortunately you can't delete the ones allready there, but of course the new ones you created)
So putting one in, thats called "My Documents", putting it on the same spot, the old "My Documents" folder is, getting the old folder on the bottom of the line (and hence out of sight) and now telling your client: "Here is your My Docs folder, in here you should save all your things, always click on it first and then save stuff." should be an easy task (at least it was in my Company ^^)
If someone wants to know, how to do it, send me a message.
(and I would be gratefull for information as to how to edit something around here)