So i got my kid a new computer and he’s downloading all his games and such when it says he’s out of space. So i look and there’s two drives on the thing a C drive with only 111 GB and a D drive that the computer isn’t using with 900 GB. How do i get the computer to recognize and use D drive? I know its something with managing the drives but i cant get the C drive letter to change or get the D drive to be the C drive? Help please?
Ask your kid what client he is using to download his games and then tell us the answer.
First, you should tell us at least which OS is used, and also the browser your son is using. I’m assuming a Windows machine, where you cannot change the system drive without a new install.
111 GB are sufficient for a Windows system drive, but probably too small to also hold the program installations, especially for bigger games. So what you and your son should do:
Create a folder named “Download” on the D drive and make it the standard download folder in your browser.
Create a folder named “Programs” on the D drive and make that the installation folder for future software and games installation.
Assuming you’re using Windows, if the drive is assigned a letter, it should be accessible. Are you it’s 900GB and not 90GB? If it’s 90GB, it probably contains recovery software that’s required for a system restore.
Though what’s odd is that 111GB available space is correct for a 120GB drive, but a 1TB drive should be 931GB, not 900GB. And 1011GB doesn’t match any regular hard drive capacity.
Assuming you’re on a PC, right click on the Start menu an choose “Disk Managment”. If there’s two physical drives listed or just one with two partitions
If the extra drive or partition is not recognized and used, how is it showing up as D? Are there any files there, or are you able to navigate there? Check the Properties, and what it says under Disk Management. It needs to have a filesystem on it.
After that is sorted out, using the space should be a matter of configuring the game installation options (for each game upon installation, and you can add an additional Steam library or even move over the entire installation if you use the Steam client).
This is probably a 120GB Solid state drive and a 1TB conventional platter drive.
Nutshell, he needs to specify the D drive during installation. There is usually an option along the first few things you click on when installing.
If he is using steam
as far as the 900GB HDD, there may be a restore partition eating up the other 30ish GB they are not always visible to windows.
Reread your post.
You can’t change the C: drive without installing Windows on another drive and marking the old C: drive as inactive. It’s possible to run Windows from a drive other than C:, but woe be to you or anyone working on your PC since it’s assumed that C: is always the Windows drive. Even software installers assume Windows is on C:
Forgot about that. I hate it when PC manufacturers do that, especially when they don’t give you any way to backup that partition on another drive or media. If the drive with the partition dies or is removed, so does your chance for system recovery. Fortunately, most Windows licenses can be applied to a regular version of Windows, though you have to find and install the manufacturer’s drivers yourself.
Im copying everything on the C drive to the D drive so there will be a Programs (X86) folder to install steam into. We’ll see how that goes.
I’ve never encountered this before. WhyTF would someone create a computer with a 111 GB C Drive and a D drive that you have to dig into to make it work?? I bought this off amazon by the way. Never had a problem like that before.
That’s not the right way to do it and will cause problems. Follow drachilix’s link to move the Steam folder. There is no need to move the entire Program Files directory, other software copied in the process will not work once copied, and there is no need to duplicate the “Program Files” naming convention. Copying the entire C: drive contents like you are doing will not make your computer boot from the D: drive and you don’t want to try at all because you will lose the performance of the SSD.
Your computer has two storage devices. The C: drive is an SSD. The D: drive is a standard HD. This is a typical way of configuring a computer with the high performance advantages of an SSD and a larger hard drive for bulk data storage. Hard drives continue to offer far greater storage (10+ TB at this time) than SSDs (~2 TB at this time) so there’s no way around this dual-drive system for storage of large amounts of data.
Edit: Cleophus beat me to the post. Great minds DO think alike! 
Good luck with that. You’re really likely to mess something up beyond repair because once something is installed to C:, it expects it to be there. Everything from program files to registry entries. Also, some programs require being installed on C: because of poor or old programming.
Did you check Disk Management to see if it’s one physical drive or two? As Dale Sams stated, it’s likely to be a small 120GB SSD with Windows installed for speed and larger 1TB drive for storage.
BTW, how did you suddenly get access to the D: drive?
IIRC, it’s impossible to move or copy the entire Windows install over to new drive without cloning the drive. Plus the system files are hidden and locked.
I wouldn’t get rid of the smaller drive, though, if it is an SSD. Just keep the operating system on it, and move/install all the games onto the bigger filesystem. The reason someone would do that is that an SSD is faster, but he or she did not feel it necessary to spend money on a 1 TB SSD. In any case, an extra 120 GB is hardly a problem.
In addition to the link above, here are instructions for moving an existing Steam installation.
@Dale Sams
I don’t mean to be rude, but please stop whatever you’re doing and read everything that’s been posted before doing anything else. I see this a lot on the other forums I frequent. Poster asks for answers, either doesn’t wait or ignores what they’re told and does what they think is best, making a mess of things takes longer and more work to fix.
We don’t know for certain the smaller drive is a SSD until the OP goes into Disk Management and confirms the C: drive is a separate physical drive. There’s an outside possibility that the two drives are on one 1.25TB platter (used for 5TB hard drives) partitioned into two logical drives and one hidden restore partition.
Getting off topic, but I have an ASUS Transformer running Win 8 and the only way to do a restore is through a dedicated image stored on either in ROM or a separate small SSD. You can’t restore from any external device with a Win 8 install image.
From Disk Management it says C: Is called Disc 0 and D: is called Disc 1
To answer some of the Qs, I’ve always been able to access the D drive, the computer just wasn’t automatically using it after the C Drive quickly filled up as a 111GB drive is wont to do when dealing with Steam and Epic Games (Fortnite). I guess I shouldn’t have expected it to automatically happen, but like I said, I’ve never encountered a computer before with a tiny C Drive and a big empty D drive.
I’m not intending to use the D drive to boot from.
So far everything is working right but from the sound of things in this thread I should delete what I’ve copied onto the D drive except for those folders nessecery for Steam and Epic Games files.
Edit: And thank you everyone for the help.
Okay, most of the questions answered.
One last important thing to solve/do. The size of drive D: implies heavily that it contains a hidden restore/recovery partition. Check your manual or online how to make a backup of the partition or create a separate restore disk. They may charge you for a separate restore disk(s), but unless you’re comfortable reinstalling Windows and drivers from scratch, it’s well worth it. As stated above, if the D: drive fails, it takes the restore partition with it and you can’t restore your Windows installation to factory fresh without it.
Some lower end Dell PCs keep the recovery partition on the main (sole) hard drive/SSD and the only way to restore it is to get a new drive from Dell, leaving you without anything you saved or installed on the original.
And finally, be sure to backup everything on both the C: and D: drives to a separate external drive. At least to one, but ideally at least two drives. I don’t know if Steam stores user data locally on the hard drive(s) or online, but it would a shame if your son lost all his gaming progress if one or both internal drives failed.
It might work for now but without redoing/redirecting the steam install, the same thing is going to happen again. Without knowing what you may have moved deleted or rearranged, it will be difficult at best to say how best to proceed.
There are a variety of very good reasons for building systems this way, the ability to reformat and reload the OS without disrupting file storage is one of the big ones. Any machines I build like this I redirect the user profiles and default install location to the second drive to help mitigate some of this type of problem.
I would HIGHLY recommend you buy a really nice dinner for a more computer savvy friend or pop for an hour with a local nerd service to give it a look and they can better explain your situation and how to work in the future without making a giant mess out of it. They can also apply the registry edits to redirect your default install folders to the D: drive.