It's only one drive, partitioned into 2 main parts and a smaller utility section. The D should be a small hidden partition that contains the factory image for a factory restore to "as shipped" state. It is not empty, just hidden. Do not use that at all. C should be the biggest partition for the operating system and all your files. How big is the whole drive? It should not be full after installing your files and should be a lot bigger than 50gb. All the programs were installed at the factory. What programs did you install? The disks you received were for reinstalls, not installation. Contact Dell Support to find out what the problem might be.

It's a 500gb drive and drive "C" (called OS) is approximately 50gb and drive "D" is the remaining ~450gb.  It's definitely not smaller than the drive C.

I filled drive C with a bunch of mustic, HD videos,and pictures which is where the factory "libraries" is set in windows 7.  If Dell made 2 partitions wouldnt they have set the libraries to point to the larger drive and not drive c where the OS is located?  Confused.

But the problem is that drive C is only about 50gb and is already full!  What do I do?  By the way, drive d is empty except for a few end user license agreement docs.

Any other ideas before I resort to calling India for tech support?

I just received my new Inspiron 1464 on Friday and just noticed the same thing on my computer.  C Drive has 58.5 GB and D Drive has 229 GB.  C drive is filling up but D drive is still empty.  Can you please let us know what you find out if you call tech support?

50GB is pretty big enough for Win 7 OS and all pre-installed applications; As a good habit it is much better to install or copy your *own* data (docs, musics and movies, etc.) to another hard disk partition (aka. D: drive) so that you do not need to make a huge backup someday later before reinstalling the Windows OS.

If Dell wants to use a partition to hold the  OS ghost  image, it should be a hidden one in case the non-tech users might corrupt it unexpectedly. and this partition should  be  just big enough to keep the image copy itself, the 229GB D: drive is  obviously not a good partition size for such a special purpose ;-)

Hi, If your D: partition is as you say the largest partition as you say it is for storage, You need to make some folders in it ie. music, video ETC. then when you want to store something it should ask where select D: or point it to D:. You can copy all the stored music ect onto D: which should free up space on C:.

Personally i would extend the C: partition so that you have only one partition, some people argue against this as if you have to reinstall the OS you would loose all your stored data, but if you make regular backups onto a external device its not a problem.

Raz

HI there,            It is better for you to do a clean installation of operating system so that the system will not slow down .. The 50 gb is enough for windows 7 and other applications but when it comes to updates and installing other softwares then that would take a huge size of you "C" drive .. Please reinstall the Operating system.

What????

Why go through the hassle of a re-install when all that is required is to use partitioning software to increase the size of C:\ drive?

If indeed, D:\ is empty, the other idea is to just delete it entirely and increase C:\ as was suggested.

I see no reason to do a clean install.

What????   Why go through the hassle of a re-install when all that is required is to use partitioning software to increase the size of C:\ drive? If indeed, D:\ is empty, the other idea is to just delete it entirely and increase C:\ as was suggested.   I see no reason to do a clean install.

I called the store where I purchased it and they said the floor model had the hard drive partitioned the same way as mine and the person that replied above.  I later called tech support and they walked me through a clean insteall of the OS and software on one large drive C.  As you can imagine this took several hours but was actually benefitial in the long run because I could then install just the Dell software that I wanted.

Yes, just using a partition program would have been much easier and in a way I wish I had just dont that to save myself an evening of grief but it's too late now.  I just dont understand why they do it this way and have all of the WIN7 librarary folders still pointing to drive C when it is apparant they want you to save items on drive D since that is the larger partition.

I just bought my new Inspiron 1464 today. Great computer, specs are great, price was great, the aethetics and the performance for the price was what got me. Can't beat a core i3, 4GB of DDR3 memory, and a 500GB SATA hard drive for only $690. Having said that, when you first unpack the laptop, the papers that come with it include one that says the first thing you should do is to go to their site and download driver updates for your particular laptop, I went there, typed in my service tag number, and then about 20 drivers said "recommended". Mind you before I even did this step I checked device manager and nothing was malfunctioning. I checked all the drivers that were recommended, some of them weren't even for my system, such as bluetooth, tv tuner, and ATI drivers, my system does not have bluetooth, tv tuner, and it has Intel Graphics adapter, not ATI, so I didn't install those ones. Then I go to disk management and notice that it says that my hard drives C partition is only 60 GBs just like kanddr, and the D partition is around 420GBs, mind you this is one hard drive. This is stupid, Windows uses Documents, Pictures, Videos, Desktop, Music folders etc, and they are stored automatically on the partition that Windows itself uses which is the C partition at only 60GB. The C partition should have been at least 250 and the D could be the other 250GB. Me, I got mad, reinstalled 7 using the reinstall disk (at least they include a disk and not just the equally stupid recovery partition, forcing you to burn recovery disks yourself), and wiped every partition including the recovery partition. Yep, I have 7 on the full 500 GB (437 or whatever its useable capacity is), no more recovery partition at all, only the 100 MB "system reserved" wouldn't overwrite so its still there, but it doesn't show up in Computer only shows up in Disk Management. I don't care that it takes a little longer to defrag, or error checking. That is why you would want a smaller partition, to save time defragging and error checking, not because you store your files on D and your OS on C, so that Windows can be reinstalled without wiping your data. I have a Dell running Win 98 that I've had for 12 years and it has never had the OS reinstalled, people who reinstall all the time just don't know how to use/fix Windows correctly. Man, back your data up to an external hard drive, use the free anti-virus that comes from your ISP, use MalwareBytes AntiMalware which doesn't run in real time like most AV, so you can have both AV and Malware Bytes installed at the same time, if you get a virus that your AV won't wipe, Malware Bytes can be ran and it will wipe it (update its definitions every 3 or 4 months). Then just do the same 3 things Windows has always wanted you to do, Disk Cleanup, Defrag, and Error Checking. Windows doesn't fill up with garbage like people say, load as many programs as you want on it, delete them, reinstall them, doesn't matter, just use these built in tools and the AV solution with Malware Bytes and forget about ever having to reload the OS ever again. DO NOT USE REGISTRY CLEANERS, they actually mess up Windows. Google it if you don't believe me. The only other reason to mess with your partitions is to put your swap file (page file) onto a SEPARATE (SECOND) hard drive in order that Windows can access the swap file at the same time as it is accessing its, makes Windows quicker. This is for advanced users, and is not even much of an advantage when your using newer fast systems. This is noob stuff. I'm typing this on an XP Desktop  that has never slowed down, or gotten a virus and it is 7 years old, also a Dell, and I've never had to reinstall Windows on it, and it is as fast as the day I bought it. Use a computer before you form opinions, or at least fix one. < >Dell, you should act like an end user when you put products out, this process stunk, again noob stuff, and you make what billions of dollars!?!?!?!