How To Free Up Disk Space Without Booting Into Windows

[anuseems]

Hard drives spend most of their time in the computer they were originally shipped with, but as computers age and user needs change they may eventually be replaced by a better drive, placed in storage, or moved to a new PC.

This may, in turn, leave you with a need to free up disk space without booting into the Windows on the computer a drive was originally used with. Taking care of this is easy if you have the correct tools.

The Hardware Path

Failure of a computer, or corruption of Windows, can be one reason why you need to free space on a drive. In this case your issue is not with booting into Windows generally, but rather booting into Windows with the specific drive or computer you own.

You can free up space rather easily be installing the drive in another computer, as Windows will simply detect the drive. However, installing the drive can be a pain. This is doubly true if you dont have a desktop handy, as most laptops have space for just one drive.

satatousb How To Free Up Disk Space Without Booting Into Windows

Fortunately, theres a solution. What you need is a SATA/IDE to USB adapter. This device effectively converts the internal drive into an external one; you can even plug it in to a Windows computer thats already running and immediately access the files. The adapter typically sells for $20 online.

While connecting a drive in this way is generally plug and play, theres one potential pitfall to note. If the drive youre trying to access had Windows installed, it will be a bootable drive. Many computers ship from the factory set to boot from USB before booting from the hard drive. You may need to change this settings in BIOS, or you can make life easier by just connecting the drive after the PC youre using to read it boots.

diskmanager How To Free Up Disk Space Without Booting Into Windows

Problems are rare, but its possible that you may run into a hitch. In this case you should do a Windows search for Disk Management, a tool that can show you all the drives connected to a PC, as well as all partitions on them. You can also use Disk Management to reformat and re-partition a drive if youre not actually concerned with the data on the disk, and merely want to free up space for use with another PC.

The Software Path

Perhaps you have another reason for not wanting to boot into Windows. Maybe you hate Microsoft, your installation of Windows is not working with your hardware, or you dont have a valid copy.

Whatever the case, it is possible to delete data from the drive without access to a Windows PC. You can do this using Linux, which can read the Windows file system.

usbinstaller How To Free Up Disk Space Without Booting Into Windows

If you dont have access to a Linux computer, you will need to make a boot USB drive that can run the operating system. The easiest way to do this is to follow Ubuntus instructions for making a bootable Ubuntu USB. If you for some reason want a different method try making a bootable USB with Linux Live USB Creator. Note that youll need access to a Windows or Linux computer to do this, and youll also need a USB drive with at least two gigabytes of free space.

Once youve made your bootable USB, youll have to actually boot from it. As already mentioned, some PCs ship from the factory set to boot from USB first, so youll just need to insert the flash drive and restart. If that doesnt work, however, youll need to enter BIOS and change the boot priority, so that USB is first. Check our article on accessing BIOS if youre lost. Also, when prompted if youd like to try Ubuntu or install it, choose the trial.

ubuntuhomefolder How To Free Up Disk Space Without Booting Into Windows

Once Ubuntu is operating, you should find accessing your files to be simple. On the toolbar to the left you will see an icon called Home Folder (it should be the third from the top). Click on it to open Ubuntus file browser. Once open, you should see your hard drive (or drives) listed on devices to the side. You can read and delete files because Ubuntu reads FAT32 and NTFS without issue.

Conclusion

You can, of course, use both of these methods in conjunction by connecting an internal drive to Ubuntu via the aforementioned SATA to USB adapter. This works without issue. Ubuntu will automatically detect other USB drives, even when theyre also running off USB.

On a related note, these methods reveal a rather obvious flaw in hard drive security. A Windows login password can keep people from accessing your computer, the files on the drive can be read easily enough. Users concerned about security should utilize hard disk encryption to protect important data. You can also set a BIOS hard drive password; however, this will render the drive inaccessible via USB, it can make recovery more difficult in the event of drive failure, and it does not protect data while the drive is in use. Encryption is easier and more flexible.

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Edited April 12, 2014 by anuseems

[dcs18]

Instead of going through all those complications - those who don't or can't boot into the HDD can simply use a Boot DVD like the Windows Installation or Hiren's BootCD to reformat, wipe or even shred the data selectively or comprehensively.

The benefit of which is - one would not need to type a long-assed tutorial for such a mundane chore. <_<

[Lite]

14 posts from this thread have been removed.

[lurch234]

Hiren's BootCD to reformat, wipe or even shred the data selectively or comprehensively

Yep! Thats the ticket :)

The article was well worth the read for this little bit of info:

On a related note, these methods reveal a rather obvious flaw in hard drive security. A Windows login password can keep people from accessing your computer, the files on the drive can be read easily enough. Users concerned about security should utilize hard disk encryption to protect important data