Robocopy hangs when files are in use while trying to free up space on my SSD boot drive.

[SpiderMike]

My new Dell XPS 8700 came with Windows 7 installed on an SSD drive. After installing most of my software, I realized the C:\drive was filling up. I read the advice on Tom's Hardware for "How to move users programfiles (and x86) and programdata to HDD after installing Windows in SSD boot Drive." The trouble is, when I try to robocopy, it hangs saying files are in use in Users and Programs - the source of a good chunk of my c:\drive. Is there a way to robocopy within a command shell before Windows launches? Should I try to boot using FreeDOS before I enter the Windows OS?

Many thanks!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

FreeDOS is no good for that because it can't "see" the NTFS partition which contains your Windows 7 installation.
Even if could see it, it can't work with long file/folder names so the copies would have truncated names.
I don't advise moving the contents of those folders anyway. It's a recipe for disaster in my opinion.

Aren't there any applications you rarely use which can be uninstalled?

Also, I never save my data to the Windows partition. I save it to three external hard drives. That means I always have backups, but also keeps my system partition free of clutter and keeps my system backup image relatively small.

 

[SpiderMike]

Thank you for stopping me from doing something I'd regret, Phillip!
My personal data is on my secondary internal D:\drive. The majority of C: is filled with the following:

c:\System Volume Information\ 64.8 GB
c:\pagefile.sys 41.9 GB
c:\Users\ 31.0 GB
C:\Windows\ 25.8 GB
C:\Program Files (x86)\ 21.5 GB
C:\Program Files\ 5.2 GB

196.8 GB used
21.5 GB free

I installed a game, and it takes up 16 GB in the Programs (x86) folder. I could remove that.
The advice to use mklink sounded like a great solution to be free to install more software in the future and free up my shrinking c:\drive.

FreeDOS is no good for that because it can't "see" the NTFS partition which contains your Windows 7 installation.
Even if could see it, it can't work with long file/folder names so the copies would have truncated names.
I don't advise moving the contents of those folders anyway. It's a recipe for disaster in my opinion.

Aren't there any applications you rarely use which can be uninstalled?

Also, I never save my data to the Windows partition. I save it to three external hard drives. That means I always have backups, but also keeps my system partition free of clutter and keeps my system backup image relatively small.