Working Around Windows Vista’s "Shrink Volume" Inadequacy Problems
The Shrink Volume feature in Windows Vista has some serious limitations, which we’ll try and explain and then suggest a few workarounds that might help you out. Be careful when following these steps, because they could leave your system unable to boot… advanced geek level required.
I would also suggest that if you are trying to configure a dual-boot system, your best bet is to backup all your data, and setup a fresh new dual boot system, remembering to install the oldest OS first. (XP before Vista, and Linux last)
Problem Explanation
The main problem that we encounter with the shrink volume feature is that you can’t shrink the volume even when there is clearly free space.
You are unable to shrink the volume at all, since according to Windows you have no free space to shrink:
The reason why Windows won’t let you shrink the volume is because there are immovable system files at the very end of the volume, as this screenshot from Auslogics defragment utility shows us. In this case, the immovable file is actually the MFT, or Master File Table for the volume.
Making Shrink Volume Work
To absolutely ensure that you can shrink the volume, you should disable as many of the system files as you can, at least temporarily. Here’s the list of steps:
- Run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, making sure to remove the hibernation file and all restore points.
- Disable System Restore
- Disable the pagefile ( Open up System in Control Panel, then Advanced System Settings \ Advanced \ Performance \ Advanced \ Change \ No Paging File.
- In the same Advanced Settings, go to Startup and Recovery \ Settings and then change the Write debugging information drop-down to “None” to disable the kernel memory dump.
- Disable Hibernation mode in your power options \ advanced power options screen.
- Reboot the machine, and then delete your c:\pagefile.sys file, following these instructions if you are having issues.
Now that we’ve deleted almost every system file that we can, you should run at least one of these free defrag utilities, but preferably all of them, in order to move all of the files to the beginning of the volume, so we can force the Shrink volume feature to work.
- Power Defragmenter (GUI interface for sysinternals contig)
- Auslogics Disk Defrag
If you are encountering the MFT problem, then you won’t have too much luck even after running those utilities. What you’ll need to do is use one of the non-free defrag utilities that is able to move the MFT files. If somebody can suggest a free way to move the MFT, leave a note in the comments.
- You can download a 15-day free trial of Perfect Disk 2k and then uninstall it when you are done. Or not.
At this point you should be able to shrink the partition, at least a decent amount. Once you’ve gotten the partition shrunk, you should re-enable those important files:
- Re-enable the Pagefile (Reverse instructions above)
- If you have issues re-enabling hibernate, follow these steps.
- Enabling System Restore or kernel debugging information is entirely up to you.
- Reboot.
Again, your best bet for dual-boot is backup, wipe, and reload, but these steps did work for me during testing.
Using Linux to Resize
You can also use the gparted live cd to resize your partitions. The problem with this is that it will definitely cause your system to not boot anymore unless you follow some very specific steps, because Vista can’t handle it.
Using Commercial Utilities
There are a number of commercial software utilities that can handle this type of thing for you, like Partition Magic. We prefer free software here whenever possible.
In summary, If you are lucky enough for Shrink Volume to work for you, great. If not, I’d recommend backing up, wiping, and installing fresh.
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This medod did not work. Later I tried “gparted live cd” at first it did not work either but it did instruct me to use chkdisk and rebbot 2 times. Then gparted did a great jobb
I had problems with 160 GB HDD and about 150 GB partition C: (HP cleaver idea create one big partion + a recovery partition,which I also removed), I could not shrink in Vista bellow 147 GB
It worked when I used of Perfect Disk 8.0 to move MFT files, I could shring to 75MB
idnt wok for me either, followed directions word for word and my disk still has files scattered around it, they are kinda in 3 different groups. one group at the beginning (large) one group in the midle (small, but in the way) and one at the very end (small but in the way)
It did worked for me. I used Perfect Disk 8.0 and was able to shrink up to 15 GB. Thanks
Brilliant thanks! Various steps along the way cleared up some room but needed Pefect Disk 2K to get the partition to where I wanted it to be. Thanks again!
Just wanted to let you know that, using this method, I was able to change the max size of my partition from 400MB to 25GB. Worked wonderfully. Thanks!
Hi,
I change my old PC running XP for a new one Pentium D with 1 GB. Vista merely could run! So, I returned the machine and bought a more powerful Athlon 6000+ 3GB of memoryt and 500GB disk. Then I tried to shrink the Vista partition. It did work but did not want to go below 250 GB while I wanted to give it 20GB. Fortunately I found your site
I ran the two recommended defragmenters and in the shrink pop screen I could see an improvement it said I could go down to 60 GB which is more than I wanted but, I said, ok let’s shrink it to 60 GB. Then I got an error:
“Unexpected error happended.Check the system journal for additional information. Close de disk management console then restart the disk management, or restart the computer”!
Pure Microsoft !
Does someone has an idea of what the error could be?
thanks
Joaquin.
Read _all_ of the instructions: “ADVANCED GEEK LEVEL REQUIRED”. If you don’t understand what the function of the Pagefile is, don’t attempt this; you are in over your head.
Thank you for the instructions Geek, worked very well.
Thanks a ton! You saved my bacon.
Was trying to take a new laptop with a 120GB partition (20 GB used), and vista wouldn’t let me bring it down past 90GB.
Got it down to 40 and change with your help.
Stumbling you now!
- Dave
Thanks for the Stumble!
I always wondered who the great people are that submit us to Stumbleupon =)
Very useful
thanks!
Thank you!
I couldn’t get it to work until I used PerfektDisc 8 – we’re the other steps really necesarry? I’d recomend someone who haven’t started yet to start with PerfektDisk 8 – defragment and offline defragment (which moves system files).
PerfectDisk is also what worked for me. I did everything in your guide but couldn’t get anywhere, then downloaded the trial of PerfectDisk and now I can shrink my partition to a size larger than 596 MB. Thanks for the guide!
Thank you! This completely solved my partition shrinkage problems!
The problem is that (from what I’ve read) you can’t shrink a windows partition more than 50%. Try this, it worked for me:
1. Shrink as much as possible using Vista’s tool.
2. Reboot, and defrag using Vista’s defrag.
3. Create a free space at the end, unformated, unmapped.
3. Boot Gparted Live CD and resize to (no less than) 60% of present size.
4. Reboot, and add free space to unmapped, unformatted space. Defragment using Vista.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve achieved the desired size.
I found I had to add the free space to avoid Vista going all “Borg” on it (resistance is futile).
Oh, and I follow the same tips as the Geek recommends, this is just if you want to avoid installing any third party stuff and just use Vista’s tools and Gparted.
amazing solution guys…perfect disk 8.0 is a real gem and the solution given above is just fabulous.
it has helped sort out my problem so easily on which i had been banging my head for hours…. thanx guys u rok
GREAT JOB!!
I used PerfectDisk, which allowed me to shrink 120GB down to 75GB… in theory only! In practice, The Disk Management tool, despite allowing me to such this new limit, wouldn’t go through with it, always saying “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation”.
Which is pretty funny, really. Despite just freeing up 50GB, and having most of 100GB completely unused on my 120GB disk, it doesn’t have enough disk space… riiiight.
Thanks man!!!!
I hit the MFT (I think) when trying to shrink less than 100GB. I used BootIT NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html ) which gives a 30-day trial, $35 well spent if you keep it. BING was able to resize the partition, slide it, and make a backup images of it on DVD and on HDD. I did two systems on it, making one dual-boot XP & Vista. BING walks on water.
Perfect Disk8 did the job after the previously mentioned methods failed. I was able to move system files and thus shrink my Vista partition to approx. half its size
Your solution worked. Thank you. I was trying to get a 500GB down to 60 and could only get to about 260 with Shrink and hours of turning things off, rebooting, Microsoft’s Defrag and Check Disk.
While I stopped paging and rebooted I could not find pagefile.sys to delete it. (Haven’t figured out how to see the system files yet.) However it was there and got replaced when I eventually restarted paging. Still it must have been below 50 GB line. Otherwise did what you suggested. I only tried the Auslogics Defrag, not the other. Auslogics showed your dreaded yellow clusters at about 50 GB. Whatever was hanging me up at 260 was gone. The Vista Shrink then ran fine.
What a disaster, Windows Vista. I need a shrink after trying to use shrink. Finally I made an image with Acronis TrueImage 11, used GParted to shrink the partition, restored Vista using Acronis. That worked.
PerfectDisk solved my problem, none of the other tools were able to.
Hi
I think you are overdoing it with disabling the system files…PerfectDisk 8.0 has an Offline defragmentation tool which unmounts your drive and can defragment your pagefile, hibernation, metadata and MFT files. Disabling may not be necessary…simply right-click on your drive, choose offline defragmentation and choose the system files you want to shift..
Thanks anyway…your ideas worked fine too..
Well, this method worked for me, but it also rendered my Norton Save and Restore useless. In my case I have a 338 GB partition with Windows Vista on it that I wanted to reduce down to 60 GB so that I could create other partitions for my data. I was only able to shrink the partition down to about 222 GB using the partition manager that comes with Vista.
I followed the instructions to delete the hibernation file, turn off the pagefile, etc. I then defragmented the drive using Perfect Disk 8, which moved the MFT files away from the end of the partition. When I tried to shrink the partition, the partition manager told me that I had room to shrink it 112 GB, but when I tried to shrink the entire space I received an error message that there wasn’t enough room on the hard disk. When I tried to shrink it in 10 and 20 GB increments it worked. I then defragmented the drive again, so as to move the MFT and shrink the partition down to 60 GB.
Vista worked fine after I did this, so I thought it would be a good time to backup my PC using Norton Save & Restore, which came with my Dell XPS 420. When I tried to perform a backup I got an error message, stating that a system integrity test had failed. I then tried several utilities to fix the problem including loading a new MBR, but they didn’t work. I also tried to restore Vista from my previous backup only to get a similar error message halfway through the restore process. After doing this I couldn’t boot up the PC.
I spent several hours over the next two days trying to fix this, including several chat sessions with the tech’s at Symantec. The Symantec advisor told me that the error was due to changing the size of the operating system’s partition, and the only way for Norton Save & Restore to work was to completely reinstall Vista from scratch. When I expanded the size of the operating system partition back to its’ original size Norton Save & Restore worked and I had my original PC back! However, that didn’t get me the smaller partition size that I wanted.
Now that I had my original 338 GB partition back, I removed Norton Save & Restore according to their removal directions. I then went back and shrunk the operating system partition down as I had before, and then reinstalled Norton Save & Restore. When I tried to perform a backup it again failed! I guess the tech at Symantec new what he was talking about.
I am going to start over by setting up my disk partitions to the size I want, and then I will reinstall Vista. Anyone using Norton Save & Restore should be aware that changing the size of their operating system’s partition may make their Norton Save & Restore backups unusable. Further, they may not know this and render their PC unbootable after trying to perform a restore. I should also mention that my two hard disks are setup as RAID1, which possibly affected Norton as well.
Is there any way to see what Vista is defrag-ing, like you can with XP?
I have a problem with Perfect Disk 8.0. I’ve run it so I have roughly 60GB free out of 106GB on the hard drive. I tried to get it to defrag PageFile, but it keeps saying ‘loading failed’ but it scans the others fine. Anyone got any suggestions?
Perfect Disk 8.0 is great!! Vista is still work in progress ….
I had the same problem not being able to shrink my C: volume from over 200 to 20 Gigs. I followed partially the instructions. Specifically, I did not:
- Disable the pagefile
- Disable the kernel memory dump
- nor, Delete the c:\pagefile.sys
I did use the defrag from Vista, which gave me just a few gigs room, but the main gain came from Perfect Disk! I just had to run it a couple of times with reboots in between (check the defrag on boot feature to make sure it moves the MFT, etc).
I got C: now at 20 Gigs. The problem I have now is that I cannot add this space to an extra partition I had for data (shown on the right). I tried to create a new volume, move the data there and add the space from the old data partition to the new partition but it did not work. Any suggestions?
I have now C(20G)//New Part(180G)//Old Data Partition (45G)//OEM System Recovery Partition(7G).
to Margus, if you are wanting to have a 65GB drive which is bootable and has your data: Resize C(20GB) to 65GB, then copy the data into it. If you are short on space do it in steps. I will assume Perfect Disk can slide the 180GB out of the way but if it cannot you will slide using BootIT NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html ) which gives a 30-day trial.
worked like a charm now I can dual boot multiple operating systems thanks
I followed all of the steps and the method worked perfect. I have one 750GB hard drive in my system that only had Vista installed on it. Learned about the shrink capability but I could only shrink the volume to create an additional 75GB partition. However after following all of these steps and (a LOT ~8 hours worth~ of defragmenting and file consolidating with Perfect Disc 2008) I was able to break the 750 into three drives: 175GB for Vista, 175GB for XP, and 350GB for data/backups. Only note from me about this process is that I did not have to manually delete the pagefile.sys after I disabled it. I guess that Vista automatically deleted it.
Great help!
Arthur Archnix suggestions worked great in partnership with perfect disk 8.0. followed his directions and was able to create 90GB from a 120Gb disk with vista preloaded. When I started out vista would only let me create 30GB, major help
thanks everyone!
Great help!
My purpose was to create an additional partition (but not for dual-boot). Your very complete and clear description worked without problems.
Thanks
Just to say that I tried Arthur Archnix’s comment and it worked. I tried to do it first using this tips, but couldn’t pass the 50% barrier when shrinking.
Then, I used PerfectDisk offline defragment and shrinked several times until i reduced it to 50G in a 250G disk.
Thanks for this page! It really helped me a lot
Hi. Really nice guide! Unfotunately I still have a problem. I own a VAIO laptop (this is not the problem…I hope), it came with Vista preinstalled (I’ve already made the recovery DVDs) and I am planning to install XP and Linux also. The thing is that even though I’ve followed this guide (including defragmenting with Perfect Disk) I can´t reduce Vista’s partition as much as I want. I would like it to be only 25-30GB big, but Vista only allowed me to reduce it to 55GB. I ran GParted LiveCD and it shows that Vista’s partition has 37GB occupied, but Windows says that only 12-15GB (I don´t remember now exactly) are under use. I tried then to shrink using Paragon Partition Manager 9, but after it reboots to apply the shrinkage nothing happens (Vista boots normally and nothing has changed). Any suggestions are welcomed!
I made a blunder! I was using the Vista feature to shrink some space on my C drive, and it looked sort of stuck, so i closed the window mid-way!
Now the space i was trying to shrink (around 15 GB) doesn’t show in C nor in Unallocated Space!
What can I do? It seems to have got lost somewhere in between!
Me again! Solved the problem thanks to Arthur Archnix (three times I thank you!) post. Open source developers have made great tools (GParted Live and SupergrubDisk, only to mention two of them). Now, after searching and reading quite a lot, I’m triple booting in my laptop without problems!
Hello and many thanks for the methodically written guide. Like some others who have posted here, I finally had to run Perfect Disc 2008 for the shrinking to work…. possibly, there were system files that were simply not getting moved otherwise. After which, the whole thing went through like a charm.
Now I need to figure out how to bring hibernation back
)
How do you use perfect disk
did it once and it went from 1400MB to 217MB
Omg, thanks to all of you guys!!!
I was all day breaking my head…and yes, Perfect Disk 2008 made the trick, but I had to follow all the steps from the article. I love the webpage…
Keep Up the Good Work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks guys! I followed the instructions mentioned above and got the job done. I used the trail version of PerfectDisk2008. I have another problem. After shrinking, I’m unable to format the unallocated space. I get “there is no space” error message. The size of the new Volume is around 35 GB.. please help.
Big thanks for nicely driving me in the right direction.
As the Geek mentioned it is the MFT bit that is blocking us.
However, by experience, I noticed the following:
- the MFT is roughly placed in the middle of the volume and therewith allowing you to shrink your volume by half its original size at a maximum;
- if you don’t reuse the free-d up space, a factory restore will give you the same result
- if you do reuset the free space, a factory restore result in a new factory install with the MFT in the middle of 50% of your original volume size.
So, without all hoops, tricks, extra software etc. this is what I did:
- half my 480 GB C volume (shrink does not allow me shrinking below half)
- create new partition in free space
- factory restore in remaining 240GB
- half my 240 GB C volume to 120GB (again shrink limit, checked MFT now to be in the middle of the volume again
- create new partition in free space
- factory restore in remaining 120GB
- shrink to my target of 75GB
Hope this is of any use to anybody. Viva Vista
If you are shooting for a dual boot machine with Vista/XP, if you can get just enough room to install XP, you can use its defrag tool to defragment the Vista partition. Then you can shrink the vista partition, and use some other tool (like a GParted Live CD – no version of Patition Magic CD boots if Vista is installed) to grow your XP partition, or just delete it and reinstall the XP partition.
Or you can do like I did and boot an XP virtual machine under Linux, mount the physical partition, and defrag the Vista partition while you do other work.
This information was really helpfull, i was able to shrink my harddrive by about 60 gb after fllowing some of the tips on here. Thanks Alot!
Rene Fennet nearly had it down pat (I’m happy as I was not keen on messing with the other stuff suggested here). It took a while – hint, do not create a logical partition until you have iterated down to the size you are happy with for the C: drive. Then, create any logical partition(s) you like from the space remaining. Also, use quick format, or you’ll be there forever. I had 1TB on a Dell XPS 420 with Vista Ultimate. The Recovery partition was set at only 15GB, as the D: drive. The rest was the C: drive – one giant one. I now have a 50GB partition for programs and the rest for a data partition.
Another point. I tried to reorder the disk drive letter – i.e. moving the Recovery partition to N:. Running a restore will return it back to D:. Maybe someone knows of a tweak for that?
No deal here. After using PerfectDisk, Vista says I can shrink the partition by 30Gb. Great!
When I try to shrink it by 10Gb, it says “Access id denied” after a few seconds.
Then I’ve tried the Vista’s restore DVD, using diskpart. Same history: “Access is Denied”.
Ok, let’s try a linux Live CD, then. Gparted live CD tells me my drive is all “unallocated”, and PartedMagic live CD tells me “no devices found”.
Please, someone help me…
now I’ve tried the XP installation disk, and it too tells me that there is no disk found.
The creepy part is that the disk works perfectly booting vista. Any idea?
1. sounds like now you should ask how current your backup is.
2. are you logged in as administrator (I’d recommend that)
Yes, I’m logged as administrator, and I’ve checked all permissions and so on.
The problem is my S-Ata HD. As it seems, all this programs are unable to load the correct drivers, even XP. I’ve got to partition using Paragon’s Partition Manager, and then running a boot fix from vista’s DVD.
I now have room to install XP, but it doesn’t recognize my disks. Maybe I need to download some drivers and slip them into xp disk…
Thansk for your help!
I hope you have a backup? BING will boot and talk directly to the hardware and handle image backup, partitions and boot fixes. If you are stuck try it, it has a 30-day free trial. You would gladly pay the price if it fixes your problem, and you will know today whether it is working for you or not. BootIT NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html )
Thank you. I should have to search for this solution for several days. Your tip has helped me a lot. I have a 750GB hard Disk with only vista and other applications installed on it. Vista could allow me to shrink it to only about 50% of it. Now I was able to shrink it to below 90 GB. Perfektdisk 2008 has also helped with the defragmentation. Thank you again for your help.
Great tutorial, thanks a lot! Damn Vista, nothing but trouble so far.
P.S. – if you don’t understand why the steps prior to using Perfect Disk are “usually” necessary, you’re probably below the skill advanced geek level required…
I tried the suggestions here but shrink still didn’t work. Eventually I used jkdefrag in Vista safe mode, it logs any files it can’t move. It turned out that the ntfs journal was spread all over my hd and was stopping the shrink. MS provide fsutil which can delete the journal
fsutil journaldelete /d c:
After that I could shrink the partition and install linux. Woo hoo!
With linux I get back all the peripherals that vista refused to play with, a logitech webcam, a pny 2gb pen drive, and my hp5800 printer can now print over my house network. Thanks for the write up.
I have successfully partitioned my disk by clicking the DEFRAG ON BOOT of Perfectdisk 2008.. then restart. In that way, MFT will be moved and Vista won’t tell you that you don’t have space to shrink.
Hey Geek / Shelded / Vilhelm / Vishaka Datta
Kindly help
I bought an HP with 221 GB on “C”. with Vista tool I have reduced it to 140 GB.
I tried working with Perfect Disk 2008 .the result is that I still cant empty space from “C” drive
I also tried perfect disk offline defragment and also checked degragment on boot
The result that Perfect Disk shows me is … MFT- 0% ( excellent)
Rest all is also fine
METADATA- 30% ( poor), with 134 excess fragments.. which perfect disk is not able to defragment.
In the drive map of “ C “ I can see that there are ‘ excluded” sections in the middle and at the end of the drive
I’m a starter at all this . thus kindly guide me
Thanks in advance
Sumit singh
Im having a similar problem as singh. When i try to offline defrag to remove “files that are normally locked by the Windows OS” it says it will perform the operation on the next reboot. I reboot and it boots normally. These immovable files are annoyingly close to the end of my disk (i can only partition out about 4 GB of my C:)
If anyone has any insight they would like to share, that would be awesome
Thanks in advance
Bryan
Hey Geek / Shelded / Vilhelm / Vishaka Datta
with refrence to my post above…
i wud like to add that when i run offline defrag on perfect disk 2008..
i get the following message…
” found Hiberfile.sys
Hiberfile.sys id= 90
Insufficient free space to defragment file 0 ”
and the problem remains the same….
cant shrink my ” C ” drive to less than 140 GB
META DATA is 30% ( poor)
kindly help….
thanks in advance…
Sumit Singh
I tried Diskeeper to defrag and still left system files at the point which was preventing shrinking.
Sounds like Partition Magic won’t work…although I didn’t verify this.
I used Acronis® Disk Director Suite 10.0 ( Create Rescue CD ) to shrink the partition without any problems.
K, great guide guys but i still have a major problem, Vista now says that i can Partion 0MB instead of the 892MB that i could before. i have a 250 in my laptop and i want to divide it for my files not for dual boot!
Help please!
OH and in follow up, what is an offline Defrag Supposed to look like for Perfect Disk 08, cuz when i ran one my boot didn’t change at all, it just stayed on the VISTA AERO screen longer (right before u put in your password to log on) so does this mean that it didn’t run?
How do u make it run ?
Hi,
Could someone help me please!!!! I have problem with shrinkig partition in VISTA. All looks fine, I can choose size of my new partition ect. until the last step of wizard of New Simple Volume. I have info: “there is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation.”
What’s the hell is this. I have over 200GB free space.
PLEASE HELP!
pete
@Everybody
If you want answers to your questions, you need to leave your question on the forum.
http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/
wow I love you very very much. before this tutorial, the most I could partition my drive was about 34GB when there is clearly 238GB of FREE SPACE. After the tutorial, im at about 113GB and havent even defragmented yet. very good work =]
Thanks for the information, it was very helpful. Rather than use one of the tools that can move the MFT I stumbled upon another method that worked for me. I didn’t read all of the replies so if it has been mentioned before I apologize.
I followed the instructions to disable everything mentioned and delete PageFile.sys. After that I could shrink about half of the partition. I then allocated the free space (using a Quick Format). I decided to do a System Restore using the restore partition. The restore used the new, smaller, C: partition that I had created, putting the MFT in the middle again. I repeated this process until I had the partition down to the size that I wanted and then did just the restore one more time so that the MFT would end up in the middle of the partition where Windows wanted it. It took a little while but I didn’t have to use any trial software or anything other than Vista.
HTH
I found Power Fragmenter did not do very much for me. However JKDefrag worked wonders when run in safe mode.
hey all!!!!!!!!
i have been banging my head over this problem fofr quiet sm time now…eventually found a solution tht worked
As i’ve mentioned earlier, my laptop came with 228 gb in ” C ”
I tried every possible thing in the book but could not manage to get my
C drive partition below 140 GB.even Perfect Disk’s online & offline defrag dint work
wht i eventually did was , i restored my computer to factory settings and just after doing so i tried to shrink “C” and i was able to shrink it to 70GB . then i allocated free space to other partitions. then once again i did factory setting restore in ‘C” and again i tried to shrink it and was able to shrink it to 35GB .
i tell u guyz , i tried almost every solution mentioned here or elsewhere, but nothing worked but for this one….
if u ppl want u can try this toooo!!!!!!!!1
@ Sumit Singh:
“i tell u guyz , i tried almost every solution mentioned here or elsewhere, but nothing worked but for this one.”
Heh, that’s funny as your method was mentioned first by Rene Fennet on this very page.
hey all…
i had the same problem and found a method similar to that offered by Rene Fennet to work nicely…
Perfect Disk’s offline defrag also moves the MFT into the middle of the partition so you can shrink as much as possible, defrag w/ PD, and repeat until you’re happy.
hope this helps.
@ Craig..
well whts nt funny is dat i was trying to tell others tht this method works 4 sure…
nd the purpose was not to take the credit for it.. but to make sure that others too can benifit from it….
n yeah, it isnt “MY METHOD”
i got hold of it from sm other forum….
Worked like a charm. This is one more mark against Vista. It’s nice that I could finally create a partition for Ubuntu. Thank you!
I really appreciate all the time and effort you have obviously put into this. It’s been very informative. However I have not been able to get Perfect Disk 2008 to move the mft and have tried all three options, Smartplacement, Consollidate, and Defrag only. I’ll check in on the forums to a resolution to this but thought you might see this a lil quicker here.
This is an excellent article and was a great help to me in dual booting Vista and Ubuntu 8.04 successfully. I would like to note, however, that I did not use PerfectDisk 2008. Although it’s a great choice I have had problems in the past and did not want to go through them again. It also requires a name and email address to get a copy for trial. To move the $MFT file I used a program called Puran Defrag. I found it to be excellent defragmenting software. It is under 30-day trial, however, but it requires no registration or anything to run. It offers a boot-time defrag that worked excellently although not completely. My $MFT file was split in two with one part on the farthest point on the outside of the drive surrounded by files, and the second closer to the inside of the drive. It moved the $MFT piece near the inside of the drive as close as possible to the other part. It did not move files to join the two. But I still recommend it in case there are no files surrounding the parts of your $MFT file. I also used UltimateDefrag, which is also excellent defragging software that offers boot-time defrag, but does not work for me. Anyways, I hope this helps some. Again, a great article.
Thank you for the article. It worked perfectly.
the perfect disk solution was the able to move the system files correctly. Thanks for your help!
Thanks, Geek! Your tutorial in combination with Perfect Disk 2008 worked perfectly. I was able to shrink “C” from 278GB to 65GB on my Vista Home Premium 64 bit box.
Thanks, again!!
Thanks for the info, God that’s annoying! Think I’ll just reinstall my OS, I have all my data on a second drive, and having a fresh windows install sounds fine anyway, since I’ll be using Linux primarily.
Thanks again!
Umm, i’m trying to install XP into my DELL inspiron 1420 laptop… My C drive took up all the space available, and my D (recovery) takes onli 10 gb out of my 220 gb hard drive…I tried shrinking and also follwed every one of yr steps, except using the gparted… But all i get is 1947mb space available… and my C has 63 gb free space… But when tried on my D i get 5 gb which is the exact amount of free space there… When defragmented, my Auslogics show only shows ‘allocated’ space on the third last row of boxes and no MFT files anywhere but one right on the middle but the Perfect Disk 2008 shows tht i have some excluded files right at the bottom… Is tht why there’s the problem….? Should i try using gparted or isit some problem whithin my hard disk drive…?
How do you delete the c:\pagefile.sys ? ive followed the instruction to own the file, but then i cant find the pagefile.sys and delete it, anyone who please give me a good instruction on how to delete the file i would be very much appreciated!
This worked perfectly for me! Auslogics and PerfectDisk 2008 did the trick – I had problems with Power Defragmenter. It would close as with an error after the scan. I am wondering why I can only shrink my 500gb hd down to 230gb, with 170gb free space. I really would like it to be around 100gb.
Thanks a lot — Now I am off to find an article on getting these blasted thumb drives to work/ be recognized by vista.
Thanks for the advice, Vista claimed almost 500G of a 1T disk. Now it is running happily on a 61G partition. 3 defrags with Perfect Disk did the trick.
another good defrag program is Piriform Defraggler
iv had the same problem my hard drive apparently has 80 gb free on a 300 gb hard drive and i cant shrink c at all. i have no idea why not. iv disabled system restore and pagefiles defragged using vista defragger and a 3rd party freeware defragger error checker and cleaned the c drive. its a mystery why i cant shrink the c drive any further. any help would be nice
Much thanks for the guide I saved 15 gigs!!! yeehaaww!!! Thanks for the protocol!!!
and one more comment:
When I tried to repeat offline run/shrink cycle for the 3rd time I’ve got “Access denied” from Logical volume manager.
I have no idea what it means, but reducing the shrink amount by a tiny bit (so that the remaining C: space is a bit bigger) got me past this issue.
Ok and here is my complete story (first post was lost by the browser)
Initial situation
—————-
I needed to shrink a Vista partition by 90%, but “shrink volume” only offers
a 50% shrink. Running normal defragmenters does not help. auslogics
defragmenter shows a lot of stuff in the middle of the disk
Tools
—–
I used perfectdisk (note: it has a 30-day trial) as it has an “consolidate
free space” mode and it can consolidate system files, MFT, etc (so
called offline mode which runs before Vista starts)
Solution which worked for me:
—————————————–
1. Shrink volume (by as much as Vista allows)
2. Run perfectdisk defragmenter in consolidate free space mode (requires
reboot) and include system files. And now Vista agrees to shrink the
volume by another 50%
Repeat as needed
Notes:
——
1. I did do the dance of disabling pagefile, hibernation, system restore
(I suspect that it was not needed)
2. on 3rd iteration I ran into “access denied” error, but slightly
reducing amount of shrinkage got me past the problem
Observations
————
It appears that Vista uses some reserved disk space for some unclear purpose.
On restart Vista reuses the same space. However if defragmenter moves
this space, then Vista seems to reallocate it right in the middle of the
disk. (hence shrink/defragment cycle). This is just a guess.
A question to those who used Arthur Archnix’s method: did you have trouble
rebooting Vista? (gparted docs seem to suggest that shrinking bootable vista
partitions is not very safe)
Keywords: shrink volume, partition, resize, MFT, Vista, Linux
Great!!!!.
Its worked for me
It works perfect to me. Thanks for the post.
It did not work with me even though I’ve about 87 GB free in the partition that I wanted to shrink
Tried to partition my VISTA-Harddisk.
It has 90GB space remaining in C drive and 10 GB in D drive.
but when tried to shrink C drive,it creates 50GB unallocated volume but when creating simple volume from it, it shows not enogh disk space available.
I am new to any laptop.
please suggest how to create another partiton of 90GB using shring method.
Your help will be very much helpful…
Thanks
I also had a problem with shrinking Vista partition. It said, I could create maximal 1.5GB partition, despite I had only new Vista and almost no other data on my 230GB disk (and only 15GB were in use).
Your steps where not enough, because of MFT and Metadata files, but after these steps Vista allowed me to create about 8GB partition. So there was a little progress.
But Perfect Disk 2008 worked perfectly! And it is free for 30 days!
After using PF2008 I reduced my partition size from 230GB to 112GB. It was enough for me. Thanks!
Hi, the article is great but it didn’t work for me (but I have learnt something new which is good).
I used Gparted instead – it’s free and much less hassle as you don’t really have to perform any of the steps above.
Just create Gparted live CD, boot your computer from it (using default options) and reduce your partition to the desired size (in my case from 465 to 90GB, which took 45 minutes)… Pretty straighforward, really. Then if you’re lucky your computer will boot as usual, if not you just need to use your VISTA CD to boot from it and select option REPAIR. After that you will be able to boot into Vista as before and you can format your new partition. Now you can relax!
If you want more detailed steps you can find them here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....partition/
IMPORTANT: You can only use the above method if you have bootable VISTA CD!
This whole website is very helpful – thanks.
My problem has been solved by using PerfectDisk; you should do following steps:
1)defrag C partition in offline mode to move SMT table from the end of the partition to the middle of it.
2)shrink the C partition
repeat these steps to reach your ideal size
I tried all of the steps above used 3 defragment software and I couldn’t shrink more than 600MB
Then I booted a linux disk and when in the instalation it asked me about the pration I resized Vista (shrank the size as much as I needed) and rebooted my pc.
I ran Vista but it couldn’t see the empty space so I ran the linux boot disk again and returned the space back to vista.
Once I booted Vista again I could resize as much as I returned back.
I think you can perform this by just shrinking vista and returning the memory back, and when you run Vista no more problems.
PerfectDisk 2008 worked for me. I tried it without first but it wouldn’t shrink the C drive any further.
For Perfect Disk if you right-click on the C drive on the defragmentation screen, Drive Properties->Offline defragmentation tab. Check all the boxes and restart your computer then try to shrink it again. It will move the paging file and meta data. I had to do it, shrink it by 50 gb, boot defrag it again and then I could shrink it as low as I wanted.
Thanks for this guide. I couldn’t even work out what the problem was until I found this page
Hi,
I tried to use PerfectDisk2008 but don’t know how. What I did was:
right-click on the C drive on the defragmentation screen, Drive Properties->Offline defragmentation tab. Check all the boxes and restart my computer.
What I should do next?
Can anybody help me?
Hi!
I’ve got only one question… Can I undo shrink volume once it is finished?
@Lewis: Yes, you can. If you want to expand the volume to the size it was after shrinking it just select extend instead of shrink in Disk Management.
Note: Of course you need space to expand the volume so if you added another partition after shrinking you would need to remove that partition to extend the first partition.
The steps in this article got my Compaq CQ-50-215NR from a Vista 150 GB partition to a 60 GB partition. I wanted more. The Perfect Disk 2008 defragger worked like charm. Its free for 30 days. It defragged my system files on reboot. I was then able to take Vista down to a 40 GB partition and could have made it as small as a 30 GB partition.
Now I can get that Ubuntu install just how I want it! Thanks Perfect Disk!
Thanks to the tricks mentioned here ( deleting pagefile.sys and defragmenting with PerfectDisk ) , I was able to shrink my C: , but it could not be allocated (got the there’s not enough space error). It took me hours before I read some articles about the max number of primary partitions on a hard disk.
So because I already had 3 primary and 1 extended partitions, I cannot have another primary. After I deleted one old primary, I was able to make a new primary so I can install XP in addition to Vista that I already had.
Microsoft clearly has misled us, they should have notified us the actual error.
Hi guys,
Using the above mentioned method with perfect disk i successfully got shrink volume extended from 600MB to 66GB. This is really wonderful Techie website outstanding over many many forums. You guys did a great job in bringing this website. Thanks!
I tried all above but could not shrink anything less than 190GB on my (500GB) Vista partition (Mac bootcamp dual boot).
The simple solution that worked for me was boot into Mac, create a blank partition with the exact preferred size (in my case 60GB) and install vista in it, rather than install first and then try to shrink it late.
Hope this help others with similar problems.
used this method and freed up 2.6 GB extra…
I followed these steps on two Vista Laptops to make the desired partitions -
From your procedure -
1. Run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, making sure to remove the hibernation file and all restore points.
2. Disable System Restore
3. Disable the pagefile ( Open up System in Control Panel, then Advanced System Settings \ Advanced \ Performance \ Advanced \ Change \ No Paging File.
4. In the same Advanced Settings, go to Startup and Recovery \ Settings and then change the Write debugging information drop-down to “None” to disable the kernel memory dump.
5. Disable Hibernation mode in your power options \ advanced power options screen.
To clear the MFT issue I carried the following steps -
6. Run Defrag – Power Defragmenter
7. Run Chkdsk /f
8. Restart
9. Download EASEUS Partition Manager 10.0 (free tool) and Resize the disks using its Application.
10. Restart.
I’ve spent a whole week trying to shrink my disk (it would only allow 4GB out of 115GB) during this time I tried:
chkdsk /f
jkDefrag
Auslogics disk defrag
O&O Defrag
Diskeeper 2009
This last one defragmented and conveniently allocated the MFT reserved zone (or space, or whatever), but it left bits of little pieces of system files scattered all over 65GB of free space and still couldn’t shrink the disk.
I got drunk twice out of frustration…
… and finally this article seem to be the light at the end of the tunnel.
I followed each and every step (which I’ve done before in different order), and voila! Perfect Disk did it. It optimized those little chunks from hell and there I go, got my free space to shrink!
Happy ending! (gonna get drunk to celebrate XD)
Now to my awaited Ubuntu installation! (hope everything goes fine! you know, wireless issues and stuff)
Grr… Even after using Disk Perfect, the very last sector in my main partition is occupied by excluded files. The Vista Disk Manager won’t let me shrink my partition at all.
* I mean Perfect Disk
Do like 5 defrags with diskeeper with the “on boot” option, this same program can apply chkdsk before defrag.
After that use Perfect Disk, also do like 5 defrags or more.
Don’t give up, I was very frustated too but I managed to move those little excluded files from hell !
Most of the executable files on the end are for the shadow copies that Vista uses to do backups.
I have a 250 gig disk and after doing all of this I could only shrink down 10% but you can also change the size allocated for the shadow copies from an elevated command prompt
enter this command: VSSAdmin list ShadowStorage
this will show the current size
then enter this VSSAdmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=15GB
before I did this Vista had 40 gigs set aside I changed it to 15 gigs above and now I can half my disk!
Tried the whole deal exactly as specified in this article, including the use of PerfectDisk. One metadata file just refuses to move, which is causing the shrink volume to continue to utilize less than half of the free space.
Anyone know how to move metadata files with perfectdisk? I tried doing it offline, reboot, etc.
Srini
Thank you for this article!
I was able to go from freeing up 3GBs all the way to 300GBs!!
For everyone having trouble with Perfect Disk make sure to disable all those system files as well. That’s definitely the part that helped me the most.
thanks a lot for this one. I searched way over useless articles which have no clue how badly Vista Disk Service fails and how the Windows Vista De-Fragmentation tool is a joke. I used Perfect Disk 2 and it worked like a charm. I ran it like twice, it showed proper statistics etc and I got around 10G of shrinkable space.
Try method 8th up from yours?
What should I do if vista is denying me access after I’ve run all these steps – I’m logged in as an admin, and I have the option to partition 30gigs (I’m only trying to partition 20) but after I run the partition utility it tells me access is denied. Any clues?
Post your questions in the forum. It’s the best way we can reply to you and you may find your question already answered if you use the search.
http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/
It seems we should switch to Windows7 gladly:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archi.....ments.aspx
Among the other changes under the hood in Windows 7 are the following:
Defragmentation in Windows 7 is more comprehensive – many files that could not be re-located in Windows Vista or earlier versions can now be optimally re-placed. In particular, a lot of work was done to make various NTFS metadata files movable. This ability to relocate NTFS metadata files also benefits volume shrink, since it enables the system to pack all files and file system metadata more closely and free up space “at the end” which can be reclaimed if required.
It did not work for me either. However using the latest version of Perfect Disk 2008 (30 day free trial) offers the possibility under “drive properties>offline defragmentation” to Defragment the selected system files on every reboot. This result in 50% gain each time you reboot. simply repeat untill desired disk space is reached. (When using this method you can skip the steps on top of this page.)
Completely missed the forums link – on my way there now
Just a heads up for anyone that tries this and runs into the same problem I did.
I have a notebook dual booting WinXP and Vista. I originally set it up with XP on C: (44 GB), a small D: partition (7 GB), and Vista on V: (24 GB). The DVD drive is E:.
I wanted to expand my Vista partition and shrink my XP one. I had the issues that brought all of us to this post. Using PerfectDisk trial version worked great to allow me to finally shrink the XP C: down to 22 GB. But the Vista disk manager would not let me extend the Vista partition because the unallocated space appeared in front of it. So I used GParted to move and resize the Vista V: partition. It worked, or so it seemed…
When I went to boot to Vista, it errored with a message that suggested running repair from the Vista install disc. Before doing that I successfully booted into XP and checked the disks. What was my Vista V: disk was now showing as F: — I changed that in XP’s disk manager and rebooted. Vista boot still failed with same message so I booted from the Vista install disc and ran repair. The next boot worked and Vista started to load and displayed the login screen. Upon logging in it got stuck at “Preparing your desktop…” for a long time before changing to a plain blue screen (not BSOD) and just sitting there. I could call up task manager by CTRL+ALT+DEL but couldn’t get a desktop. Launching some new tasks and browsing directories confirmed that the disk was still identified as F: instead of V:.
After some more web searching I found a thread with a solution. I had to boot back into XP and start regedt32, temorarily load the Vista SYSTEM registry hive found at V:\Windows\System32\Config, select the MountedDevices key, change name of DosDevices\V: to DosDevices\Z:, change name of DosDevices\F: to DosDevices\V:, and then unload the hive.
Booting back into Vista worked fine after all that. The last step was to run regedt32 on Vista and delete the value named DosDevices\Z:.
I’d like to thank you for the best and most developed answer to this question of Working Around Windows Vista’s “Shrink Volume” Inadequacy Problems..
And it worked just fine… I just bought a new HP laptop of 320 GB but couldn’t shrink Windows partition below 140 GB.. I tried many things and many disk defragmentation software, but none worked, until I followed the process described here consisting of:
1. Run the Disk Cleanup Wizard
2. Disable System Restore
3. Disable the pagefile
4. Disable the kernel memory dump
5. Disable Hibernation mode
6. Reboot the machine
After this and running PerfectDisk I was able to shrink Vista’s partition to 70 GB..
Thanks
I had this access denied when trying to shrink volume c on my laptop. the best solution, i found that worked was to use perfectdisk 10 with the option consolidate free disk space. it worked a treat, saw it move all files to the front of the disk. i had 150gb spare of 250gb. when i shrank the volume it gave me 60gb for a new drive. before that it only gave me 21gb, which was not enough for the os.
I have Vista with 186GB disk and had 170GB free space.
Using Disk Management I could shrink disk only to 120GB. Then I tried PerfectDisk10 and JKDefrag several times and did help a bit so I could shrink it up to 90GB, but still not satisfied.
Then I downloaded this free software EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 Home Edition and managed to shrink it down to 30GB.
Hope it helps.
Don’t forget the defrag command line utility in Vista that comes with Windows. I tried Perfect Disk and two other defrag utils but couldn’t get it to move this one adamant file. Windows defrag did the trick for me for that file! Not sure what that file was though, sorry,
I want share my experience with u..
After doing all basic steps for Restore points and Hibernate and PageFile
and then using all De fragmenters suggested here, Only Perfect Disk did it
But when trying to shrink the volume, i got ”Access denied’ , and the only thing make it work was to run checkdisk :
- Right-click on C: > Properties > Tools > Check Now > mark ‘fix’ option > Start
,then will tell schedule it> say ok > restart and Scan should start > try shrink again and it should work
What I did was to delete as much file space as I could and then defrag the drive with the auslogics AND diskeeper software. I went from having 10GB to 50GB (150GB drive, 89 was used up). Also it would be important to note I also deleted my previous windows files using disk cleanup before defragging.
I am also going to try partition Magic because I found the disk laying around.
After shrinking the volume, I got unallocated volume. i chose the unallocated space and then went for NEW BASIC VOLUME. After finishing it i got a error message that my disk cannot be partition as it has already partitioned a lot but i have only two drive
This worked great for me! I went from hardly anything to the space I needed! Thanks for writing the easy howto. Your time and research is greatly appreciated.
Great article! Thanks
I have a new HP laptop with Windows Vista Business freshly installed and the C partition wouldn’t shrink to smaller than 116GB. The Auslogic defragmenter showed me that there was a file right at the end of the partition which was preventing me from shrinking the partition further. I downloaded the trial of Perfect Disk 10 which took about 15 minutes to defrag the partition and move the file. I’ve now successfully shrunk the volume to the 50GB I wanted.
- Rartition the “C: Drive” with ‘Factory Restore’ … The EASY WAY ! ! !
- I have ‘Windows Vista Home Premium’ on a ‘HP Pavilion PC’ with ‘One 320GB HD’
This is what I did
- From My Actual Hard Drive :
- “C: Drive” 298.09GB, “D: Drive” 9.72GB ;
- I Check for ‘FREE SPACE’ on “C: Drive”
- With the Free Space I Created an ‘88GB Partition’ “ASSIGNING A DRIVE LETTER” (MOST IMPORTANT), I named-it “E: Drive” (Principal Drive) (could be any other letters available) ;
- I then did a ‘Factory Restore’ » “It AUTOMATICALLY RESTORED in the remaining 198GB “C: Drive” (Factory Restore the version as it comes out of the factory) ;
- After the restore in the 198GB “C: Drive” – I Check for ‘FREE SPACE’ on “C: Drive”;
- It shows that there is now another 98GB Free Space Available ;
- So I Created a Volume of 98GB and named-it “F: Drive” (Came out as a Logical Drive) ;
-
- If you whant another partition(s) repeat the above.
-
- So I Now have 4 partitions :
- – - ‘HP “C: Drive” 101GB’
- – - ‘HP Factory Image (Restore) “D: Drive” 9.72GB (Same As When I Started (DON’T TOUCH))’
- – - ‘For Programs “E: Drive” 88GB’
- – - ‘For Personal usage ‘Photos & Documents’ “F: Drive” 98GB’
-
- Voilà, at present I know it’s possible and very very easy.
- Freighting to start with, but ‘NOW THAT I KNOW how’ i.e. that the ‘Factory Restore’ LOADS AUTOMATICALLY IN THE “C: Drive,” reduced volume or not (These are ‘INSURING WORDS MISSING’ in ‘Rene Fennet’s Posted: April 2, 2008 10:33 am)
-
- Something to think of when creating partitions, Especially in a New Drive because you’ll have to re-install all your old stuff (Updates, programs…)
—————————-
May God Bless,
Bandco
I found Paragon’s Partition Manager to be the only program that solved this issue by moving system files at boot time. Highly recommended, but you’ll have to buy it – free trial version didn’t let me actually commit the changes
Thanks for the how-to and software references. I cleared up 200G on my 1T drive (600G free) and vista told said I had no space left to shrink the partition. Before I started clearing up the HD vista would have allowed me to create a 3G partition oddly enough. Now that I’m getting my defrag taken care of I can prepare for the power of Linux (gentoo is my flavor of choice).
On another note: Factory Fresh PC? Stay away from Dell and HP if you want control over your hardware. They love their hidden paritions that if you wipe, you are stuck with a brick unless you have a pure copy of the OS (their restore CDs require stuff off that partition).
Worked pretty well =) make sure to defrag system files with PerfectDisk ^^
Thanks for the “How to resize Vista partition”. However, once i did the partitioning using GParted Live CD, my laptop doesnt start up.
It throws me a “Disk Error” and asks me restart the system.
I tried restarting it several times but to no avail.
Can you HELP ME solve this problem !!!!
Gr8! it worked for me ..
it seems possible to reduce the partition size to almost any tiny extent..
For instance, my HDD was 285 gb , it was possible using the following stpeps to reduce till 50 gb (and it was possible even more but i stopped here!)
wat i did was i followed the first 6 steps (until ‘delete your c:\pagefile.sys file’ ) at the top of this page and then i used perfect disk 10.0 .
In perfect disk 10.0 . ,i selected the offline defgragment option (whih defrags ur system files on boot up) and it yielded me half the size of the free space for shrinking for every run and restart.
In my case i had 285 gb free space initially ..
).
then after running offline defrag using perfectdisk 10.0 during startup , the available shrink space was shown as142gb , i shrunk it and then after restart and running again , the available shrnk space was 72 , and then on to 50 gb (it offerred me 37 laslty , but i rejected the offer
now c drive is 50 gb only from , down from 285 gb.
Thanks very much for the tut. Reduced my 320GB Vista partition to 150GB ready to install W7RC1 on the new 170GB partition.
STUMBLED
Thanks
worked great for me
All very good suggestions. Unfortunately no ONE solution worked for me and I kept getting an “Access Denied” error message when trying to shrink via Vista’s Disk Management as well as via the command prompt version (after defrag, system file fixes, etc.). In the end, what did work for me was simply shrinking in batches under 10GB via Vista’s Disk Management tool. That worked perfectly and it makes me wonder if I could have simply started with that in the first place. But, in the end this forum got me there so thanks everyone.
Thanks to you (and a couple of other online articles), I successfully reconfigured my partitions and got Windows 7 installed today – it took all afternoon but I couldn’t have done it without your help! Thank you very much!
Mike left the following comment:
… when trying to shrink the volume, i got ”Access denied’ , and the only thing make it work was to run checkdisk :
- Right-click on C: > Properties > Tools > Check Now > mark ‘fix’ option > Start
,then will tell schedule it> say ok > restart and Scan should start > try shrink again and it should work
I finally got a recalcitrant volume down from 300GB to 93GB using Mike’s advice here. Many thanks to all who wrote in, and I wish MS staff would read this
I was having the problem of Vista saying I only had either 0 MB or 200 MB to partition. Used PerfectDisk, got 8 GB, still too small. Did the defrag during reboot from PD and that freed up 50GB, however, now I was getting Access Is Denied when trying to Shrink. Used Perfect Disk’s CONSOLIDATE FREE SPACE, thanks to misterm’s suggestion.
I am happily exploring Windows 7 RC now. Thank you to the OP and everyone who made suggestions.
Just as a data point for those that might be using Google or another search engine to find answers.
I already had a dual-boot Vista Ultimate with all patches (as of 15 May 09) and Ubuntu 9.04. With Ubuntu writing NTFS drives, made sense to start spending most of my life over on the Ubuntu side of the world. My idea was to divide the hard drive into three partitions: 40 GB for Vista Ultimate (NTFS), 120 GB for Linux, and 160 GB for data (NTFS) starting from a 160GB Vista/160 GB Ubuntu split.
Vista’s shrink said I could shrink by all of a 116 MB despite having 60+ GB free. Ugh. Went through the various turning off options, deleting files, removing rollbacks, etc. followed by the various defrags (did not try Perfect Disk 2k though) and still only got 116 MB available for shrinking. Ugh.
Trying using the gparted that came with my Ubuntu 9.04 but had a number of unresolved issues. Finally said the heck with it and downloaded the 0.4.4 ISO from Source Forge and burned it to a CD (trivial as Ubuntu now supports “transparent” or idiot proof burning at least for ISOs). Restarted the system booting off the gparted CD. On my Dell D630, just accepted all the default start-up options. gparted eventually came up. Trivial to use. Actually the split from 160/160 to three partitions flew – less than a minute. Ended up having to resize to the 40/160/120 partitions the drive is now and it took about an hour as data had to be moved around as the Vista partition was shrunk while GB were added to the data and Ubuntu partitions.
The best thing however was that Vista booted up without any problems even though a drive was new (the data partition) and the Vista drive had been shrunk 120 GB. Sweet.
Your mileage may vary though.
wooo i worked man thnxs now i can install windows 7 and vista daul boot yeahhh.. but is there any way t delete the windows 7 partition fater i might get bored of it lol…:)
My experience with this on a new Dell laptop with Vista SP1.
I disabled pagefile, hibernate etc as described above and shrank the disk as far as possible using Vista’s native disk manager. I defragged using Power Degragmenter and then tried to shrink further but Vista wouldn’t allow any further shrinkage. I then booted into Ubuntu live CD 9.04 and shrank using gparted, first unchecking ‘Round to cylinders’. The shrink took under 2 minutes and I was able to boot straight into Vista with no problems.
I followed your instruction and now the shrink size is even less. Shrink size was 38 Gb on a 320Gb HD now it’s 1810Mb Thanks a mill! WTF do I do now?
To Daniel (posted June 11, 2009 8:59 am),
Which instruction did you follow? All of them or just one and gave up? If you help out of your “WTF” situation, you might want to post a bit more about what you did.
FWIW, the Windoze solutions did NOTHING for me. The Linux approach ran like a charm for me.
Good luck with your “WTF”.
twm3, Thank you for replying to my WTF situation. I followed the instruction very slowly and concisely from start to finish. I have given up now as it seems my shrinkage is getting ever smaller. I am going to do a reinstall and do it that way. Hopefully I wont run into any WTF moments along the way.
Hey, and good luck to you.
Over and out.
wtf?
hey i tried ur method but the shrink volume is still showing me 0MB to shrink!!!
first i tried all the method till Auslogis disk defrag.. i could only get abt 66 GB from about 160GB of free space on C drive..
bt then i used the perfect disk 10 and tried to drfrag the system files upon the reboot .. it was done in like 5-10mins bt afetr that the shrink volume came to 0MB…
now i ran the SmartPlacement defrag from it!!! but to no avail it is still showing 0MB left!!
here are some pics!!
shrink http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1369/shrink.jpg
perfectdisk10 after running SMARTPlacement http://img36.imageshack.us/img.....disk10.jpg
and the disk structure http://img190.imageshack.us/im.....ucture.jpg
Plz help thx!!!
hey guys jus got Gb back in shrik volume!! bt i want to shrink more!!! is there any way i can move this black line http://img190.imageshack.us/im.....ucture.jpg
THX
lol!! 141Gb* forgot to mention that! :-p
Speaking of defrag, check out this fantastic free open source program. I like it better than just about any defrager free or commercial!
http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/
“JkDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimizer for Windows
2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to
use, fast, low overhead, with several optimization strategies, and can
handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that
looks like a disk to Windows. Included are a Windows version, a
commandline version (for scheduling by the task scheduler or for use
from administrator scripts), a screensaver version, a DLL library (for
use from programming languages), versions for Windows X64, and the
complete sources.”
After getting the disk layout sorted enough (via defrags) that Vista Disk Manager said I could shrink it by the amount I wanted, shrink wouldn’t actually work – it just hung (vds.exe was chewing up lots of CPU, but not doing any disk IO). I then tried the free EASEUS Partition Manager to resize the partition, which worked for me.
Worked for me using Perfect Disk 10. I had to first disable all system files using this method.
Thanks !
Also it’s worth noting that the Power Defrag can take a WHILE – it ran for 36hrs on my machine (and it’s rand new)