Windows 10: C Drive Full, D Drive Empty, Each on Separate Disks, and Need Space

I need to download new Nvidia drivers, and it automatically tries to download in my (OS) C: drive, and the launcher doesn't provide an option (as far as I can tell, even when doing custom installation) to select which drive to install the new drivers -- it just automatically tries to download in the C:, and then fails because of a lack of available volume.

The problem, of course, is that the C: has 116 GB used of a total 118 GB. My D: drive, however, has 670 GB free of a total 930 GB. Each drive is on separate disks (Disk 0 and Disk 1). As the two disks are not parallel, shrinking volume on the D: won't automatically free up space to expand volume on the C:.

How can I keep both drives, and expand the available space in my C: to download the drivers?

:)

 

Disks and Drives on Windows 10

Ok so basically I want to allocate more space from my "D:" drive to my "C:" drive. My "D" drive has a lot of empty space that I can utilize. However, both Drives are on different Disks. I have Disk 0 and Disk 1. Disk 0 has drive "C". Disk 1has drive "D".
I've tried everything to allocate more to drive "C" which needs more space. Is it even possible to do so?

Also, my "D" drive is empty but says 1% used?

 

How do I override this and in fact backup drive C:\ onto drive D:\. At the moment I can not see drive D:\ as an optional drive to back up to.

Hi
DemonBradsahw, thanks for your answer. My Drive D:\ is in fact a separate internal drive built into the computer and is not a partitioned drive. It is 2 GB large and empty. My Drive C:\ is a 500 MB drive and only about
50% or less full. Therefore my drive D:\ has adequate space and capacity to back up drive C:\ to.

I specifically wish to back up drive C:\ To D:\ (A mirror image) so it will be convenient to use windows restore to restore Drive D:\ to Drive C:\ in the event of a system failure at some time in the future.

Thanks.

 

Device drivers usually cannot be installed on a drive other than the one Windows is installed on. If C: and D: are 2 separate physical drives you can't expand the C: partition. There usually are inaccessible partitions on the boot/system drive that one can't or shouldn't change. I run an ASUS computer with Win10 on a 150GB C: partition on a 1TB drive with the D: partition being about 750GB or the remainder of the only drive in the system. I put all my downloads on the D: partition along with the few large programs I need, right now C: is 91GB full and 56GB available while D: is 170GB full and 610GB available. There's a few 'tricks' one can do to free up space, in Control Panel, Internet Options you can empty the TIF/Temporary Internet Files. Press the Windows key and R then type %temp% and use Ctrl+R to select all the files in that Folder and Delete them, won't get them all but will make some room.

 

Your current C:\ drive situation is untenable. It would be risky to run Cumulative Updates for Windows 10. And the problem will resurface until space is freed up.

Look at the installed programs and see which ones do not get used, and uninstall them to free up room. If uninstall is 'forbidden', one can move a major portion of the installed program onto the other drive, and 'leave a note' behind.

As for the Download, most web browsers allow one to set the default folder to receive the downloads. It's probably not a good idea to set that folder on another drive. Temporarily? Maybe.

 

You can't extend C to D if they are on different drives, no.

What I'd suggest is to run disk cleanup - see Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

Then run Treesize free as Administrator and see what is taking the space on C volume. Then you can delete or move stuff not required on C to to D. You'll need 10GB free at least to run the Windows upgrade coming next month.

You can relocate Documents, Downloads, Pictures etc to D by right clicking and selecting the "Location" tab. Some programs ignore this but it may be worth doing anyway.

Documents Folder - Move Location in Windows 10
Downloads Folder - Move Location in Windows 10
Music Folder - Move Location in Windows 10
etc

It is possible to Move Users Folder Location in Windows 10 which moves everything but this isn't the ideal solution for an existing install.

Most games will install on separate drive so 120GB for C should be ample for Windows, Office and other programs.

 

Thanks for all your help. I ended up copying secondary systems to my D: drive, then deleting them from C:.