2 internal hard drives-need both system files?

[somanyquestions]

Hi. I'm new here and not very computer smart. I have a computer with 2 hard drives and am in the middle of erasing unneeded memory. I see that I have duplicate system files on both hard drives and wonder if they are needed or if I can delete one set and free up more memory? One of the drives is from a different computer.

 

[johnb35]

You can delete anything on the old drive that you don't need. The first hard drive is what you boot off of and holds all your system files needed for windows to run. You don't have have memory on hard drives, you have hard drive space. Memory is on memory sticks. Anything under the windows directory on the old hard drive can be deleted provided you didn't save any files under that directory.

 

[somanyquestions]

thank you Johnb35,

From your answer I don't understand the difference between "space" and "memory".

Also, how do I check if I have any files saved under the windows directory?

 

[johnb35]

Alot of people confuse memory and space. Hard drives do not have memory, they have hard drive space. If you open your case and look at the motherboard, you will see usually 1, 2, or 4 slots that are about 5 inches long that will hold memory modules. The more memory you have installed makes your computer somewhat faster and also makes your programs work better. Hard drive space allows you to install programs, save music files, save office files and so on and so forth. You are the only one that knows if you saved files under the windows directory. However, all your documents should be saved under your documents folder. Some programs also save their projects under the program files directory.

 

[somanyquestions]

thank you for your clarifications!