Shrinking a partition's size?

[stockhausen]

A quick one . . .

I have just bought a laptop.
The entire SSD is one huge partition.
I would like a "System" partition and a "Data" partition.
Before faffing around with Windows 10, what is the best way of shrinking the "C:" partition to make space for a "Data" partition?
Thanks

 

[stockhausen]

All very true . . .

. . . However, this all involves my "faffing around with Windows 10" which I would like to avoid. I was looking for something simple, reliable and foolproof like Partition Manager.

I have now found "10 Best Free Disk Partition Software Tools"

 

[stockhausen]

GPARTED seems to me to be the ideal solution - I think I will give that a go.

To clarify; I would like to adjust the partition sizes BEFORE booting Windows 10 for the first time; I will then "image" the system partition and finally I will boot Windows 10, update and patch it as necessary and install any software that I think is appropriate (Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC, BleachBit, etc.). That way I can always revert to a "Virgin" copy of Windows 10 at any time - QED

 

[stockhausen]

. . . . Well you never said this Jesus.

Don't call me Jesus on a public forum - everybody will be crying HELP and demanding a pardon!

 

[stockhausen]

Could you not just put another drive in?

It is a very low profile laptop, presumably with a M.2 SSD. It has two USB-C ports (I don't have any USB-C devices (yet)), a single USB port and an HDMI port. Sadly it doesn't have a CD drive and I don't have a standalone/pluggable one of those anyhow.

If you have a Win10 Setup USB lying around, boot the computer and at the setup dialogs press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt. From there use Diskpart.

You can easily create a W10 Setup USB using the Media Creation Tool, or download Windows ADK and create a WinPE USB.

Thanks, that is a very good idea, I certainly could have gone that route - I will remember in case I ever need to do this again