Unable to Shrink Volume C: there is not enough free space???

Im trying to get a third partition set up for XP - parition 1 is Vista (OEM
installed - HP) partition 2 is my HP_RECOVERY drive, and partition 3 for XP.

The XP partition I managed to create by shrinking the free space left on P2
- but its too small to install XP, let alone run anything (I think.... its
1.77 GB)

*******

BUT when I try to shrink any space out of volume C either one of two things
happen:

- sometimes the disk manager will display a couple megabytes of available
space for shrinking
- the rest of the time the disk will show 46 GB (46877 MB)

on its good days I will try to ask the volume to shrink 20480 MB (20 GB) out
of volume C, but I get an error:

"There is not enough free space to perform this operation"

I've got RAM, I've got Disk Space.... <_<

***********************

so my next approach was to run the CMD Shell under the administrator and use
the diskpart program: here be the result

********************************************

Setting SDK environment relative to C:\Program Files\Microsoft
SDKs\Windows\v6.0
..
Targeting Windows Vista x86 DEBUG


C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6000
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: TACHIKOMA

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 504 KB

DISKPART> list partition

There is no disk selected to list partitions.
Select a disk and try again.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- ---------
--------
Volume 0 F DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 E SIMCITY4 CDFS DVD-ROM 557 MB Healthy
Volume 2 C NTFS Partition 178 GB Healthy System
Volume 3 D HP_RECOVERY NTFS Partition 6747 MB Healthy
Volume 4 B XP NTFS Partition 1812 MB Healthy

DISKPART> select disk=0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 178 GB 32 KB
Partition 2 Primary 6747 MB 178 GB
Partition 3 Primary 1812 MB 185 GB

DISKPART> select partition=1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> select volume=2

Volume 2 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- ---------
--------
Volume 0 F DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 E SIMCITY4 CDFS DVD-ROM 557 MB Healthy
* Volume 2 C NTFS Partition 178 GB Healthy System
Volume 3 D HP_RECOVERY NTFS Partition 6747 MB Healthy
Volume 4 B XP NTFS Partition 1812 MB Healthy

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
* Partition 1 Primary 178 GB 32 KB
Partition 2 Primary 6747 MB 178 GB
Partition 3 Primary 1812 MB 185 GB

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
* Disk 0 Online 186 GB 504 KB

DISKPART> shrink querymax

The maximum number of reclaimable bytes is: 46 GB

DISKPART> shrink desired=2048 minimum=1024

The specified shrink size is too large.

DISKPART> shrink desired=4 minimum=2

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: 4096 KB

DISKPART>


**********************************************

Now, happy as I am to reclaim 4MB of free space, I would like to know why I
cant pull 1 GB at a time at the very least.

Does it actually have something to do with the RAM? Can you only pull out at
any one time as much free RAM as you have? At the moment I am currently
munching.... 1032MB of 2046MB.

So, I will attempt now to reclaim a little ram here and try again...... down
to 941 after closing a couple bits and ends *god this OS consumes a lot*

Now to attempt to reclaim 1024 MB

************
DISKPART> shrink desired=20480 minimum=1024

// RAM is not spiking above 960MB...... CPU cores are roughly at/below 50%
with fluctuations.....

The specified shrink size is too large

DISKPART> shrink desired=1024 desired=512

The specified shrink size is too large

DISKPART>

********************************************************

So, Im at a bit of a loss, and would like to know if anyone has solved
this/can help/ is part of the microsoft development team and is at least
working on the problem!

;_;

You might try defragging all the drives on the physical HD first (from an
elevated command prompt)
defrag -c -w -v

O wait - I fixed it: I RULE

what I did was read up on another thread where the shrink volume will stop
when it runs into a system file - so what I did was installed PerfectDisk
defragmenter - and ran a free space defragmentation (and an offline defrag of
the otherwise unmovable system files), so that all my free space occupied
only 1 unified sector. Shrinking the volume after this was painless.

please retain this thread as a solution to this error. for the development
team though i strongly urge them to fix the source of this error for the SP1.

K so i tried this but it still doesn't work for me, i have 40g's free on
my HD and it will only let me partion 892MB HELP PLEASE

could you detial what you did
SMARTPLacement
Consolidate Free Space
DEfrag Only

i have done all these on my system with Perfect Disk 2008

Help!!!


--
skory32