Running CCleaner on multiple internal drives

[jayden]

I have 2 internal harddrives that I run from (dual boot) - both contain OS's. I need to know how I can get CCleaner to run on both drives and not just the C Drive. I have seperately intalled CCleaner on both drives but they still only scan the C Drive and only scan teh CDrive's registry for issues. How can I make the one I have installed on my E Drive recognize that drive/OS/Registry and clean it?

[Disk4mat]

You would have to boot up the other OS and run CC from there. CC wont clean registry hives that arent loaded. The same can be said for other aspects of the OS. If your not running CC under that OS how would CC know what to clean and where to find it?

 

It would be a great deal of work, but you could add entries to WinApp2.ini and CCleaner.ini to include specific program and folder paths to clean for other drives. But you wont get the same degree of automation in detecting programs and paths like running CC under the other OS. Hope that makes some sense and gives you a place to start.

[jayden]

I already tried running it from both drives before I even posted here. Thats why I stated in my previous post that I had installed it to both drives.

 

I have seperately installed CCleaner on both drives but they still only scan the C Drive

 

It doesnt matter what drive I am booted to, it still pulls the C Drive. When I am logged into the E Drive and run the one I have installed on that drive, it still cleans the C Drive - so unfortunately, that philosophy does not work.

[Disk4mat]

Sorry Jay I misunderstood your fist post. Its been some time since I actually used CC under the conditions I described. Possibly over the last couple years something changed in CC. I used to have 2 diff XP installs on C and D (same drive 2 partitions) and running CC from the active logged on OS resulted in cleaning the drive that was in use. Hopefully someone else might be able to offer some insight on the topic. As of now I am running a single OS so I cant do any testing.

[BobJann]

Sorry Jay I misunderstood your fist post. Its been some time since I actually used CC under the conditions I described. Possibly over the last couple years something changed in CC. I used to have 2 diff XP installs on C and D (same drive 2 partitions) and running CC from the active logged on OS resulted in cleaning the drive that was in use. Hopefully someone else might be able to offer some insight on the topic. As of now I am running a single OS so I cant do any testing.

 

 

I have a similar question but with different details. I just started using CCleaner. I have a (small sized) C: drive that contains the operating system. I have an external E: drive to make up for small size of the C: drive. The E: drive contains mostly programs that I have added since buying the E: drive.

 

No doubt because of my lack of technical expertise, I have not completely understood the messages in this thread so I apologize if I am restating an already-answered question.

 

Will/should CCleaner clean and repair my E: drive or only my C: drive?

[Augeas]

CC will not clean your e drive, and does not repair anything, just clears out old temp/log files etc. I guess the reason why it doesn't touch drives other than the c is that all folders holding temp/log/etc files normally reside on the c. There's no standard stuff on other drives to clean up. You can direct specific folders/files on the e drive to be cleaned (wiped completely) by including them in the Include section, but be careful, CC will wipe the entire contents of whatever you include.

 

I can't help with the OP's problem though.

[Alan_B]

I think that CCleaner may be hard coded not for the System Drive, but for Drive C:

 

If you use Windows XP you can change the drive letters.

You can probably transpose C: and E: with the result that either :-

1. the alternative O.S. will now reside on the new C:\, and CCleaner will now clean as required; OR

2. you will have perpetual BSODs and I will be cursed for ever for suggesting this !!!

 

I have no idea what the consequences may be, and I suggest you wait for experienced advice.

 

Regards

Alan.

[Disk4mat]

BobJann,

 

For cleaning applications you could add programs to the WinApp2.ini. But I will mention that few programs installed on another drive will require cleaning. I find mostly portable applications store files/junk etc within the programs installation folder. Otherwise programs like Acrobat, Office etc will store all temp and junk files on C no matter what drive the programs are installed on.

 

You almost need to address each program on a case by case basis. Is CC detecting the program as being installed (giving you a checkbox to clean it)? Are the programs temp files and/or registry MRU's being removed?

 

If you care to post which programs are on the E drive I can maybe let you know (for some at least) if you need to create entries for WinApp2.ini

[bustaccount]

FUTURE READERS: for anyone that is still wondering what's happening or what to do, read the first and last paragraph. (I've realized that this was made 2008)

I believe that CCleaner's focus is to clean garbage files like %temp% and things that never get fully deleted. The creator of the program most likely programmed it so that it only cleans files like this; which are only located on the C Drive. If it were to somehow clean the D drive too, then it delete literally every file (or none at all but we pretending it can). It's not possible for CCleaner to acknowledge the files that are garbage that somehow be moved over to the other Drive, so any garbage files would be seen as files that were actually wanted. As if you installed "Video.mp4" on C Drive. CCleaner knows it's an actual file and wont interfere. On the other drive, it wont know if it's garbage or not because of the way it's programmed. So it would either not do anything, or delete it > no matter what it is.

TL;DR: It's not programmed to delete files on another drive because it doesn't know what garbage files actually are, therefore cannot clean the drive.

Fix? You'd have to go one by one and look for garbage files. Or you can setup a shortcut by downloading a computer plugin that allows you to hotkey a file into a folder, and then you can hotkey every garbage file into one folder and delete them all at once. Not sure what the program is but I know it exists.

all of that is really not worth it so just try and not put garbage files in your secondary drives. All the space taking up your second drive is most likely what you've downloaded anyways: Not garbage files if they were to be there.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by bustaccount
wanted to inform future readers

[Nergal]

Well said, though 13 years later