Disk Management - Shrink volume

I have a laptop with a 90GB hard disk. There is 60GB free and I'm trying to
use the Shrink volume option in Disk Management to make the main partition
smaller. After I want to create an additional partition so I can dual boot.

The problem lies with Shrink Volume. Even though I have 60GB free it's only
offering me the chance to shrink by 14GB.I've turned off system restore and
hibernate. I've also used a number of defrag tools including Auslogic and
SysInternals.

Does anyone know how I can get Shrink volume to recognise the big chunk of
free space I have?

You will need a third-party partition manager to do that. The Windows
Disk Management utility can only shrink the volume until it finds an
unmovable file and then it can go no further.

Try Easus partition manger... it's free.

Keep in mind that changing volumes can cause damage to your partitiontable
or more. So, before you change anything, backup all your important data.

I wasn't the one wanting to make the changes... "Paul" was.

That said, I bet I have more backups than any five people posting here
combined.

Would you recommend a partition for Vista OS? say 40GB?

Just installed Vista Ultimate 64bit on 500GB
thanks!

Hi, Paul.

If you know WHICH file is unmovable, you may be able to handle this by a
multi-step process. Some unmovable files are actually quite small, so if
you can delete that one (copy it somewhere accessible first, of course),
then you can shrink that partition.

If you have no other disk to save that unmovable file, then you can first
shrink that first volume by the 14 GB available and create and format a new
partition there. Then copy your unmovable file to that new partition and
delete it from the first partition. Shrink the first partition again to the
size you want. Then copy the unmovable file back to the first partition, if
you still need it there. Finally, delete the new partition you just created
and use all the vacated space to create one or more new partitions.

Of course, the unmovable file may actually be a part of the NTFS file
structure and may have to stay just where it is. But some files might be
unmovable only because they are protected by a password, or they may be part
of an application or utility that can be uninstalled and then reinstalled
later.

If you can tell us the name of the file, somebody might be able to give you
some specific advice about it.

You need to:
1) Disable hibernation through command prompt. Type in elevated prompt:
powercfg -h off
2) Disable system restore: Start Menu, rightclick on My Computer, click
system protection in left-hand list, uncheck the drive you want to
disable it on, and confirm your choice.
3) Disable the pagefile: Open up System in Control Panel, then Advanced
System Settings \ Advanced \ Performance \ Advanced \ Change \ No Paging
File.
4) Disable the kernel memory dump. Open up System in Control Panel,
then Advanced System Settings \ Advanced \ Startup and Recovery \
Settings \ System Failure \ change drop-down menu to (none).
5) Run the disk cleanup wizard and be sure to delete all previous
restore points and hibernation files.
6) Reboot
7) Download the 30-day free trial of PerfectDisk 10 Professional.
8) In the PD10 interface, select you drive and run a SMARTPlacement
defrag
9) When that is done, do a consolidate free space defrag. This will
create the largest chunks of fre space as possible.
10) When that is finished, in the main page of PD10, right next to the
size of your hard drive, check the box that says "boot." This will
defrag Windows system files that can only be moved when Windows is not
yet booted. This will make it defrag system files EVERY time you boot,
so you should probably turn it off after the first use.

Using these 10 steps, I went from 3GB available for a partition to over
104GB. I would strongly advise against uing GParted and similar
utilities unless you REALLY know what you're doing. After you have done
all the partitions you wish, you should probably re-enable system
restore, hibernation, page filing, and kernel memory dump. I now have a
200GB Vista x64 Home Premium partition (main), a 25GB partition for
testing Windows 7, and a 10GB recovery partition. Cheers!


--
julzx94