Windows 10: Deleting Windows.edb and Copying Full Hard Drive

Howdy y’all.



My toshiba laptop has been haemorrhaging memory for years. No matter how I delete things or how much space I use it it’ll suddenly drop.



I got to the point I wanted to figure out why so upon research I installed WinDirStat.



I found my answer. 71gb is being used on the Windows.edb file.



Now I don’t need to mess up my laptop anymore than it is, heck it’s been with me half a decade or more and does near enough everything I need. I do have several spares but they each serve different purposes.



What I wanna know is will deleting that file screw up my laptop worse? It has its faults to be sure and is cracked almost directly down the middle in part but functions fine so long as I keep it on. If it turn it off I have to wait a while before the screen errors stop and it’s back to working order no idea why but seems that when the laptop gets cold it does this.



But I was trying to copy the entire hard drive onto a 2tb external memory stick I have. It’s only 500gb max, and I have plenty of space. And yet I also can’t seem to copy all the data that’s taken up.



I have about 6.6gb left outta 453gb yet I haven’t added anything of size in months. Heck I removed over 30gbs of data to free up space and yet within months it’s filled with absolutely nothing, but still the data is filling up.



Anyhow. Will me deleting the Windows.edb file destroy how it functions or can I do so to free up that space?



Also if anyone knows how I can copy everything successfully onto the external memory stick that isn’t just copying and pasting one folder at a time I’d appreciate the info. I read about cloning but not sure that’s what I’m after.

:)

 

Replacing old hard drive, need way to copy Windows installation across

Hey Guys,
What would be the best way of copying/imaging the entire contents of an old system drive over to a replacement hard disk for the same machine? I need to copy the Windows installations and all other data to the new drive, and then format the old drive to use as a backup.

Any suggestions? *Smile

 

Hard drive/ OS issue

a guy suggested :

• shutdown
• unhooked HDD
• restarted
• yay !!
• reconnected HDD
• restarted
• yay !!

also , try method 3
How do I unlock the drive where Windows 10 is installed?

 

EDB index search database file -- can I locate on a removable hard drive?

I just indexed a 2 TB USB-attached, external hard drive on my Windows 10 Enterprise laptop. The indexing was added to the *.edb file located in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications. The process increased the size of the "Windows.edb" file by
about 4 GB. There is lots of room on the external hard drive, but not much less free space on my C: drive, which is a 300GB SSD. Is there any way to put the indexing info on the drive that is being indexed? I.e. the *.edb file containing indexing info for
Drive C: would be located on Drive C:, while the indexing info for Drive D: would be located on Drive D:.

The benefits of this approach would include:

* better use of limited SSD hard drive space

* "portable" index-based searching, e.g. if I plugged the removable drive into another system

Thanks