partitioned D Drive almost full

My friend has vista home basic on his laptop . It is a total of 80gb
I assume it is partitioned C and D drives.
The D drive only has capacity of i think 6 or 7gb approx and the remainder is on his C drive and plenty of space.
The HP ( presario_RP (D) Drive is showing nearly full.
I am assuming that the D drive is only supposed to be for recovery info ?. Why is is showing nearly full ?
If it is because normal new programs and data info is storing there ... how can it be moved to C drive. Is there a default option somewhere for data to be stored ?
Also if he has made backups or restore points( which i think he may have done ) would they store on D Drive. and if so can restore points be removed apart from the latest one if you know it is ok ?
A little longwinded with the questions but please excuse a silver surfer.
One further question can the D drive be increased ? if so how.

HELP PLEASE
Thanks for any forthcoming replies.
Kennp

On my computer (a GateWay), the d: partition is a system partition with the original factory settings and operating system of Windows. It's there in case the operating system in use gets corrupted... during bootup, you hit some special key and it gives you the option of restoring the data from the d: partition to the c: partition. I think it's called a system 'Recovery' partition. My d: partition is nearly full because it has to store a lot of data. If I were you, I'd leave the d: partition alone since it sounds like a recovery partition and could be useful in the future if your computer gets really really messed up. If you need more space, consider installing a second hard drive.

Many thanks for your reply, but as i stated the C Drive has at least 30 -35 gb free .. How can he ensure that all future programs and data is stored on C:
Any settings or defaults he can amend ?

Thanks

I have a HP also and D: is a recovery partition, nothing new gets stored there. All goes to C: automaticaly. MrHope is right LEAVE D: ALONE!!!

If you need more space, consider getting a second hard drive.

Click to expand...

It is good news that all futre work will be saved in his C drive because he does have plenty of space there.

He has had his pc for about 3 months now and it is only in recent days it has been warning him of the D pessario drive being almost full.
What is the reason... something must have been added to the D drive recently ... do back up's or restoring back to specific restore point dates or creating restore points effect the D drive in any way ?

Once again thanks for your replies

I dont know why the D: drive would be changing, but I do know that restore points can be set for one drive or for more than one drive. When you do the restore points procedure you'll see a window with a list of drives affected. You can change the list of drives selectect by changing the [x] checkbox near the name of each drive. I hope this is helpful.