Vista - Partition HDD

Casdawer · 15 Feb 2010 at 18:31

Hi guys,

I have a 500GB HDD all allocated under C:

I want to split it so that C: has 200 and D: has 300 but i can't as Computer Management says that i can only shrink the volume by 900MB which of course is useless!

Any idea why it won't let me shrink it more?

Thanks.

G J · 15 Feb 2010 at 18:55

How full is the drive? Another issue also might be a reserve needed on the C:\ but don't quote me on that

PermaBanned · 15 Feb 2010 at 18:56

How about you use a Linux LiveCD with gParted on it?

rpstewart · 15 Feb 2010 at 20:56

Casdawer said:
Any idea why it won't let me shrink it more?

The shrink option in Disk Management will only allow you to shrink the partition as far as the last bit of data on the partition, it won't move any data even if there is plenty of free space. Defragging might improve things but a proper tool like, as Superewza suggests, gparted is a better option.

Casdawer · 15 Feb 2010 at 21:45

Tried doing -

Defrag
Disk Cleanup
Removed Page File
Removed Restore Points

and nothing!

So in the end i saved all my data to an external drive and formatted it to 2 partitions and installed Windows 7 on one of them!

Thanks for the help anyway guys

Ziggy4 · 16 Feb 2010 at 00:16

PerfectDisk can defrag and consolidate free space while it's doing so. It puts all files and directories at the start of the drive which can free up some space for shrinking a partition. Another advantage of this is that your files are then also moved to the fastest area of the platter. Windows defrag and Diskeeper just shove the files around anywhere. I've used PD to perform just the kind of task you are asking about and it worked very well.