Unable To Shrink C-Drive, Winows XP SP3. Why?

Some back ground information. I have been working to restore a computer at the house I am visiting at for a while. After getting most of the bugs out and connecting the computer to the wifi vial a USB adaptor I was able to complete most of the Optimization of the computer.

 But could not move the Temp, TMP, Page Files and the Internet Explorer, Temp files off the C- Drive, as there was but 2 partition's  D: The Recovery Disk or Restore disk, then the C-Drive all on what is suppose to be a 200gig SATA hard drive.

You, ask why would I want to do this; why would I want temp., files stashed all over my C- Drive. Causing the drive to fragment this is as I understand it the leading cause of that feared task: WHY, we Defrag!!

Now where do you think I like to put those temp files. ( Note: for every user account you have on your computer you need move the TEMP Internet flies to a different drive. Will not happen by themselves.) On the D: Data: Drive. Doing so speeds up the computer.

Why the page file for the same reason. Think of this, if your computer has more than 2 gigs of memory then you have to have a D-Drive as Windows recommends that your page file not be larger than 2 gigs. Thus for every 2 gigs of memory you need another drive partition for the page file. This is the blight of computers with 3 or less gigs of memory. As the hard drives now are large in capacity and memory is less that 3 gigs.

Base formula is that the page file should be 1.5 time larger than total memory. Do your math.

In XP the system would work fine with 512MHz. of memory  1-3 gigs even faster as memory other than over clocking is what speed up a computer. The page file(s) has to be equal if not greater.

Here is the dumb question what in blue blazes is the page file. It is a file on your hard drive or partitions of your hard drive(s) that the computer uses to dump files when you change the video image or when you open a new window or program.

Hay, not bad for a self taught computer tech next month will be 4 years since I bought my first one.

Back to the title of this post. There is a windows program that I have used in the past to shrink the C-Drive or operation system drive after I defragment the drive. Why? Good question there is absolutely no reason in the world to have a 200; 320; 500gig. hard drive, the more data and programs you add the more memory you use the more temp files you create the slower your computer gets.

For the OS to search for a file in one 50mb on a hard drive that has 200 gigs of used space on a 320 hard drive takes a long time. Particularly if, if is a spread sheet. Or your income tax return that you are waiting for at H&R Block. ( Do my taxes there I like them.)

Did you know that you cannot defrag, a drive that has less that 15% free space? Nope cannot be done.

Yes I know that the programs automatically delete all temp files after you close the window. NOT! NOT!
Who knows what evil lurks within your computer? The Shadow knows and he is the man who taught me what I know well most of it.....

Well I spent some time looking for it and could not find it in XP but I know that I have used it on my own computer very successfully to that 300 gig partition down to 40. that is about the size you need for vista.Giving me room to create 2 more primary drives. Data & Misc/Music and a logical drive for my back-ups. Did so on my Nieces computer, her dad's on 6 laptops. Boy howdy did this stump me.

Went to  DIY-computer-repair.com; my mentor's website. Into "Questions & Answers" and posted the same as the title of this article. Received a reply with in 5 hours. Suggested that I try a couple of things; you can read his reply and my additional remarks for yourself.

While in personal email with Mr. Russell I realized that it was on windows "Vista" that I had used the program to shrink that big hard drive.

Hay check it out this is one of the good things about "Vista" the Dog, Operating System.

Trust that you learned something like I did in my next post I will continue with article 2 in this series.