Mar 20, 2013  There was a time when we used to install create, delete, extend and shrink partitions in Windows XP. Unlike Windows XP, modern Windows operating systems Vista and Windows 7 packs-in decent set of tools to create, delete, extend and shrink partitions without having to use third-party tools.

• Windows 7 Shrink Disk
• Extend Disk Partition Windows 7
• Windows 7 Shrink Volume 0 Available

In Windows, you can decrease the space used by primary partitions and logical drives by shrinking them into adjacent, contiguous unallocated space on the same disk. This unallocated space could then be used to create a new simple volume (partition) on the disk. This tutorial will show you different. How to Shrink a Partition In the Disk Management screen, just right-click on the partition that you want to shrink, and select “Shrink Volume” from the menu. In the Shrink dialog, you will want to enter the amount you want to shrink by, not the new size. Dec 19, 2018  Step 2: Right-click the target partition and choose Shrink Volume feature. After right-clicking on the target partition, you will get a pop-up menu. Now choose Shrink Volumefrom the pop-up menu. Windows checks the volume to see how much it can be shrunk. Step 3: Set the amount of disk space to release partition space.

Use the Disk Management Tool in Microsoft Windows 7 to shrink a hard drive volume to create room so that you can add a new partition. Microsoft Windows 7 provides several tools for managing the. Windows was unable to shrink C: drive in Windows 10 'Hi guys, do you know why Windows 10 doesn't allow me to shrink C: drive on my laptop? I want to shrink the C: drive but the Shrink button is disabled. Will shrink the partition by 500 MB, if possible, and if it cannot shrink by 500 MB, it will at least attempt to shrink it by 250 MB. Will shrink the partition by 10000 MB. You may check the new partition size by running the list command, again. You must now exit DISKPART by using the Exit.

I have just bought an HP laptop with Windows 7 (64 bit). It has a 500 GB HDD with three partitions: a small hidden system partition, a 12 GiB HP recovery partition, and a 450 GiB C: boot partition.

I would like to split this large C: partition into two partitions, leaving only 100 GiB for the system, and giving the rest to a new data partition.

Although the Windows built-in Disk Management utility has an option to shrink the bootable partition, it only allows me to shrink it roughly by half, even though only 20 GiB on the partition is used. As far as I understand, system unmovable files lie in the middle of the partition, preventing Disk Management utility to do what I want.

And since new HP laptops don't come with OS installation disks (they only allow you to create recovery disks yourself), I can't just repartition HDD and then reinstall OS.

So, is there a way to shrink the C: bootable partition and preserve Windows 7 working?

P.S.: I have tried to use the third-party GParted utility, and after shrinking the partition, Windows 7 stopped booting, with a BSoD. System recovery didn't work, and I had to do factory recover. Since this is a long process, I would like to avoid doing it again :) So, please, suggest only proven solutions.

Peter MortensenAlex CheAlex Che

7 Answers

TL;DR

1. Try to shrink the partition in the Windows Disk Management snap-in. Proceed to the step 2, if the shrink fails.
2. Find the event with ID 259 in the Windows Event Log and see it's details.
3. For even more details, optionally, run the fsutil command with the appropriate parameters given on step 2.
4. Given the details from the steps 2 and 3, determine what component, program or feature is locking your partition.
5. Temporarily disable or uninstall it.
6. Go to the step 1.

Possible culprits: Virtual Memory, System Restore and/or Windows Search Index (System Volume Information folder), Hibernation, Internet Explorer temporary files.

Detailed version:

In the low-level tasks, like working with an HDD system partition, I prefer to use native tools as much as possible, and switch to third-party tools only as a last resort, if none of native tools worked. So, directed by harrymc, I gave Windows Disk Management another try.

I first turned Virtual Memory and System Restore off, removed System Volume Information folders, and after that Disk Management utility allowed me to shrink the C: partition as much as I needed. After that I turned the features back on.

The following instructions may help you to identify what application or component is preventing your partition to shrink. First you need to find the latest event with ID 259 in the Windows Event Log (see Event Viewer / Windows Logs / Application). The event is generated when the system analyses a partition, and if you have already tried to shrink a partition via right-clicking on it in the disk management snap-in, then the event should be there. Another way to make the system analyze a partition is to run the Windows built-in defragmentation utility. The event tells you the last unmovable file or just the number of the last cluster of such a file. It also tells you the complete command to run from the command line to get more details about the last unmovable file. (Alternatively, you can probably also try to calculate the cluster number as min allowed partition size divided by cluster size, and then run the fsutil command with the appropriate parameters).

The filename will give you a hint to guess, what program or feature is locking your partition. And then you can turn it off or uninstall, and see if it helped. In my case turning off Virtual Memory and System Restore was enough. Sometimes it is also necessary to turn off hibernation, etc. And sometimes partition defragmentation may also help. Also, as stated in the WindowsITPro article, Windows Search Index files and Internet Explorer temporary files can also be 'unmovable'. Sometimes just disabling the System Restore and Windows Search Index will automatically remove unmovable files from the System Volume Information folder, and sometimes you may need to remove the folder manually after that.

P.S.: Thanks everyone for answers. Probably third-party tools would also work in my case, and probably they are easier to use, but as I have already told, for such kind of tasks I prefer to use native tools as much as possible. Also, personal thanks to harrymc for the important hint.

Alex CheAlex Che

If I was you, I would give Gparted another try, it can be used as a Linux boot disk and can resize disks very well.

If you take a look at the download page, there is a warning with a bug relating to NTFS disks so you may want to try a previous version.

WARNING: Recently there have been several reports of problems when resizing file systems using gparted-live-0.5.0-3. In the case of the NTFS file system, The error message seen after the partition is resized is:

The problem appears to be related to the combination of packages, Linux kernel, and patches used in the GParted Live image. We are investigating to find the root cause of the problem. Until this problem is solved we recommend GParted Live 0.4-6-1 for resizing all file systems.

William HilsumWilliam Hilsum

First, I would backup the system partition (for example, with Symantec Ghost v11 Enterprise). And for good measure, also image the ENTIRE drive (you can restore much faster than with HP's restore facility).

Then delete the C: drive and create two new partitions to your likings with a partitioning tool of your choice. Then deploy the image of the former C: drive to the first partition.

Peter Mortensen

Some Windows files are unmovable and are unhelpfully allocated by Windows at the end or middle of the disk, so that one can only shrink C up to a limit. Which is exactly what you have discovered: The disk cannot be further reduced without destroying Windows.

The only solution is to reinstall Windows in a smaller partition. In your case, you will need to delete the existing system partition and divide it into two partitions via a third-party tool, then restore Windows into the first partition on the disk. Do not touch the restore partition!

I suggest using Paragon Partition Manager 2010 Free Edition as having a good user interface. Otherwise you can use any other tool such as GParted.

Peter Mortensenharrymcharrymc

I've been banging my head for several days in an attempt to shrink a Windows 7 primary partition that hosts the OS. The problem was a set of system files located in the middle of the partition that were excluded during the defragmentation process. Various attempts with several disk partitioning programs, some of which touted their ability to relocate all system files, succeeded in creating only more frustration.

The solution:

Turn off System Recovery. The files that would not relocate during defragmentation were created by that utility and contained all the restore points. When you turn off System Recovery, these files are deleted. Once deleted, Windows 7's Disk Management utility was able to shrink my 259GB C: partition to a bit over 40GB.

Gaff

Windows 7 Shrink Disk

GParted solved my problem! After struggling with unmovable files in the standard Windows Disk Manager I finally used GParted from the Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) live CD. It worked like a charm!

Peter Mortensen

For a bitlocked drive I have successfully used the tool Raxco Perfect Disk 12 (evaluation version).

It contains a defragmentation tool with a 'shrink drive' profile. It can move many unmovable files on the fly. In my case, I needed to schedule it at boot anyway and it did the job. After that, I was able to shrink the drive from the Disk Management console in a standard way.

Advantages:

• It worked despite the fact that my system drive was bitlocked. Bitlocker would prevent Linux tools I suppose.
• It did not upset my bitlocker setup. Some tools that do mess with the boot sequence turn on bitlocker recovery mode.
• It did not require disabling, uninstalling or removing any files.

Peter Mortensen

protected by DMA57361Mar 1 '11 at 8:20

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There was a time when we used to install create, delete, extend and shrink partitions in Windows XP. Unlike Windows XP, modern Windows operating systems Vista and Windows 7 packs-in decent set of tools to create, delete, extend and shrink partitions without having to use third-party tools.

With the Disk Management tool present in Windows 7 you can accomplish most of your hard disk partition related tasks such as create, attach and detach VHD easily. It’s much powerful than the XP Disk Management tool.

Few weeks back, we had covered how to formant a drive in Windows 7 and also how to create a new partition in Windows 7. This time, we will show you how to shrink and extend a partition in Windows 7 without using third-party partition tools.

Users who’re looking for advanced partition tasks can go for the excellent Partition Wizard software. We suggest you go for the free edition of Partition Wizard as it packs-in the all the advanced tools you would use on Windows 7.

Note: Please backup your crucial data before starting the procedure.

Here is how to shrink a volume in Windows 7:

Extend Disk Partition Windows 7

Step 1: Open Windows disk management by typing diskmgmt.msc in Start menu search box and hitting enter.

Step 2: Now right-click on the volume that you want to shrink and select Shrink Volume option.

Step 3: Enter the amount of disk space to shrink in MB.

Windows 7 Shrink Volume 0 Available

Step 4: Click shrink button to start shrinking the volume.

Step 5: You are done.

If you want to extend a volume by adding space from one or more additional disks, you can use Extend Volume feature present in disk management.

How to extend a volume in Windows 7:

Step 1: Again, open disk management by typing either disk management or diskmgmt.msc in start menu search box and hitting enter.

Step 2: Right-click on the volume that you want to extend and select ExtendVolume option to open extend volume wizard. Click next to continue.

Step 3: Enter the amount of disk space that you want to add the current partition from available free space.

Step 4: Click next to start extending your partition size.

Step 5: Done.