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That's a good tutorial, Dennis. @ onesickpuppy: I would be very interested to see how you work it out. I have been interested in this approach (using Linux to "fix" windows) for a long time. I used a live CD successfully a couple of times years ago, but don't remember how.

Good catch, Hazelnut. I didn't know it had OpenCandy. Saved lots of folks some grief, you did.

This was done last week. First off, based on suggestions found here and elsewhere, I manually installed these: KB3161664, KB3161608, KB3102810. Then the game was on. On a fairly fast win 7 laptop the search process required about 9 hours and is not finished yet. Have not had time to watch it finish. On a fairly fast win 7 desktop, the time required was about 20 hours. That includes 7 hours of reading about each update before deciding. That computer is finished for now. Pitch moves faster. https://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=38569

There is a new version of BurnAware, v-9.3, available 07 July 16. I haven't used it but I think several here have. Supposed to be pretty good. Home page says BurnAware is a family of full-featured and free burning software to create CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs of all types. Home users can easily burn bootable discs, multisession discs, high-quality audio CDs and video DVDs, make, copy and burn disc images. Power users will benefit from BurnAware's advanced options, including control of boot settings, UDF partition and versions, ISO levels and restrictions, session selection, CD text for tracks and discs, data recovering, disc spanning and direct copying. Free vs paid comparison: http://www.burnaware.com/compare-editions.html

First off, do what mta said, sounds more promising than my idea. As for your question, no it doesn't sound stupid at all. How can you know this stuff till someone tells you? Hazelnut, moderator on this forum, first told me about Puppy Linux. I love it, but not as my main OS. Am too lazy to learn the ins and outs of a different OS, so I stay with windows. . A Linux distro is an operating system different than windows or apple, a Linux Distribution AKA distro. . There are many of them, and almost all are free. Most will work from a CD, DVD, or USB stick, or can be installed. They do pretty much the same things windows does . . . boot your computer, get you on to the 'net, etc. Most have built in applications that make documents, pictures, presentation files, play music and videos, and a bunch of other stuff. However . . . If you have not used Linux before, I guess you shouldn't try it for recovering those files. Simply because Linux will allow you to delete or modify just about anything without blinking an eye, so it might make a mess. After you get your real problem fixed, if you have time and still want to, give Puppy Linux a try. Its fun. There are a couple of others, called Zorin and Linux Lite, that look and act more like windows, but I don't think they run in RAM so I didn't mention them at first

Someone knowing more than I will probably chime is soon. But as far as I know, Recuva won't see the drive unless it has a letter assigned, that may be the obstacle. I would try a Linux distro, just burn it to a CD or USB, boot it up and check will it see your files. Puppy Linux is free, small to download, and runs in RAM. Not sure it will work. I have used Puppy Linux often, but never for this purpose. BE CAREFUL. Linux operating systems do not recognize the safeguards built in to windows. You can delete very important files with never a warning. If it doesn't work, you still have a nifty little operating system to play with, for only the cost of a CD.

Wow, hey, look who's back. Long time no see, Alan. I just filed this little gem of a software in my "digital attic", a permanent storage USB drive. There I found a note with your name and this link: https://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=41518&do=findComment&comment=252103 I had completely forgotten about it, as with most things nowadays. So thanks again.

And now ver 2.01, same link. Wow that was fast. Thanks for sharing. Off to try it right now.

OK. Round 2 coming up.

Went forth, not sure who conquered. Windows built in disk mgmt shows the HDD to be 920 gb with about 867 gb free and 52.7 gb used.. The shrink partition option showed only 457,101 mb of "shrink space" available, so I did that. Simple volume wizard worked fine. Now there are 2 partitions, C: at about 473 gb and the new one at about 446 gb. Shrink partition option says no more shrink space available on C:. Still boots and works OK, but it is a far cry from the 80 or 90 gb C: drive I would like to have. Questions. I didn't change pagefile or hiberfile, didn't delete the restore points or the leftover updates. Would that make the difference? If I use one of the other softwares to shrink the partition down to 80 gb, will data be lost? Remember its a GPT UEFI system, if that makes a difference.

"All other storage is done on the HDD (pagefile, user files) and all system drive accessing/storing services are disabled ... " Does that mean that the OS and programs are in one partition & the other stuff in another? I intend to leave all that stuff turned on in any case. 90 gb still OK, you think? As usual, this question has 1000 different answers on the net. "accommodate win 7, 8.1 & 10" means this. I have a laptop that has not been turned on since win 8.1 came out. The plan: 1. Back it up as is, before it connects to the net (still win 8). 2. Upgrade to in 8.1, update, back that up. 3. Upgrade to win 10, >> shudder<< update, back that up. 4. Go back to 8.1 and run that s long as possible. Lots of trouble, I know, maybe not worth it, but I'm gonna try. Think it'll work? (memories of your dual boot XP experience flood back)

OK, thanks rridgely. I will probably go with 90 gb for C: drive. Want it to be big enough to accomodate win 7, 8.1 & 10. Probably try the built in windows tool first. I don't do this stuff much, don't often need to, plus it scares the dickens out of me.

Thanks, trium.

Sure does, thanks for the reminder. Hazelnut, I usually try the most complicated and cumbersome solutions first. Must break that habit. Edit: Is that procedure outlined by the How To Geek really as simple as it seems?

Just had a look at DISKPART referrences. Now I remember why I want a GUI based software. :lol: Still looking, tho. There are good tutorials on the sevenforums.

Thanks. Just checked the Easus site and the free version 11.0.0 will merge partitions. Also will be learning about the DISKPART command. Any suggestions what is a good minimum partition size for the win 7 and win 8 OSs? Certainly I'll post whatever happens. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I will soon need to partition a couple of hard drives running win 7 and win 8. Both are UEFI & GPT systems. I want to get the C: partition down to a small, workable size, so that Macrium and virus scanners have less work to do. Will use the newly free space for files. The software must be capable of splitting AND merging partitions. (Merging seems to be missing from many of the free ones.) Free would be good, but function is most important. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Just glad you're back, Winapp.

OK, thanks for that, Willy2. Just looked it up, will likely allow it.

FYI the link in the post above is a direct download link for ccsetup518_protrial.exe.

See the last post here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=184576.15 It may be an integral part of the program updates now. I'm not sure, will know after the next update here. Only real problem I had with it is the added resource usage. Not much, but still too much considering that I didn't even want it. Edit: I'm still using Avast. The benefit outweighs the cost, for me at least. Looking around for a better now, though for the first time in 10 years.

Hazelnut's link works here for XP. Just an FYI.

Many thanks to Trium & Hazelnut. Answer to my question here: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=46103&hl=

Thanks very much, Trium.

Thanks for that info, Trium and Hazelnut. Very helpful. Fwiw, the microsoft page doesn't list kb 3035583 as part of this rollup. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3125574