Disk Manager not allowing me to shrink partition...

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheMadPoster
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TheMadPoster

I have a 74 gig drive with 53gigs free. Vista Home Premium installed. I
was allowed to shrink to shrink the partition once, freeing up 1.4 gigs.. I
want to dual boot to 64bit Vista so I need to free about 20gigs to install
64bit. It keeps telling me that if snapshots (?) and Paging files are
stored on the drive that I am trying to partition it will reduce the size
that I am allowed to shrink. Well I have no idea what snapshots are...
System Restore is OFF, and my virtual memory is set to 1.53 gigs. My
recycle bin is set to 500megs, and IE7's cache is set to 1meg.

So...wtf? I have searched all over the net to find an answer. So here I
am... Anyone know how I can repartition my drive??

Thanks in advance.

~Andy
 
Did you defrag the drive before shrinking? There may be system files that
are fixed in place on the disk - if they can't be moved, then that will
limit the available shrink space.
 
I did find that solution online in a forum somewhere so I tried it, with no
luck. I am at wits end with this thing.

~Andy
 
Turn off Volume Shadow Copy and Hibernate. Unless needed, I would
turn off System Restore also. The built-in defrag cannot move MFT type
data. I would download the trial version of Perfect Disk 8.0. Do both a
Offline and GUI based defrag. Then retry Diskmgmt.Msc to shrink the
volume. This type of operation is always risky, so I'd take a Image of
the volume in it's current state - Things can and do go wrong as PCs have
a wicked sense of humor.

Perfect Disk 8.0 Trial version sign-up here:
http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/perfectdisk2000_download.cfm
 
I wanted to shrink then Vista partition from 60 gig to 30 gig. I first tried
using Vista Disk Management. I could only get down to 42 gig due to being
blocked by unmovable files on the Vista partition. After booting into the
Acronis Disk Director Suite (version 10) I was able to shrink the partition
down to my
desired 30 gig.

The partition survived the operation and I have been using Vista RTM for the
past 2 months with no strange occurrences.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Did you look at the version of windows that I am using? Home Premium does
not include Volume Shadow Copy and I also menetioned that Hibernation is as
off as I can turn it. Thanks for trying.

~Andy
 
Resolution,

To completely turn off hibernation and set my paging file to no paging file,
defrag with PerfectDisk and then I was able to shrink it.

Turning off hibernation is done ONLY on the command line and was found by
googling it @ google.com

"Turning off hibernation in vista" was the query I used to accomplish this.

The paging file set to no paging was done through My Computer, properties,
advanced...etc..

PerfectDisk is a nice defragger and worth the $40 I dropped on it today.

Hope this helps some of you.

Just and FYI, I am a windows wiz, and rarely come accross a Bill Gates
puzzle I cannot solve. For those who helped in steering me towards an
answer, thank you. You were the seed. If you need help, post it here, I
will try to help you if I can. BTW, legitimate copies of Vista only, if you
downloaded it...there is no help for you. ;-)

~Andy
 
Hey Andy I am having the exact same problem. I'm running a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop with a 60 GB hard drive. The drive says I have 30 GB free, yet will only let me "shrink" the partition by around 10 GB. Let me know if you figure this out.

Trey

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com
 
I google partition manager find some freeware bellow:
paragon 'PARAGON Software Group - partitioning, drive
backup, hard disk maintenance' (http://www.paragon-software.com)
I have not used,no comment!
Click to expand...

Good. Because the people you think you are posting too have been GONE
from that thread SINCE MARCH 2007.

And none of them are users of Vista Forums (they are each a "guest")
so the won't be notified of your post.
 
It perfectly allows you to shrink a partition, although I wouldn't trust it.
It almost killed my hard drive.
 
coolgamer512 said:
It perfectly allows you to shrink a partition, although I wouldn't trust it.
It almost killed my hard drive.
Click to expand...

How does one get that space back? For instance I shrunk the main volume
by 10GiB on my laptop to allow for a Linux OS. If I choose to dump
Linux will the main volume then absorb the space again? I'm obviously
not very Vista savvy so thanks.
 
Gene E. Bloch said:
I kind of like the e-mail address he uses :-)

What do you think the odds are that I will try the product?
Click to expand...

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being "definitely" and 1 being "no
freaking way"... 1.

The bozo is posting from Techarena, one of those blasted vBulletin
gateways. The only posts from that address are posts that are touting
that program.
 
Hello,

I did all the steps. It has increased the substancial amount of space. But
the original problem is still there. When I try to do shrink partition in
Disk Management, it always says "access denied".

I want to create a new partition. How do I do it?

Thanks
 
JC said:
Hello,

I did all the steps. It has increased the substancial amount of space. But
the original problem is still there. When I try to do shrink partition in
Disk Management, it always says "access denied".

I want to create a new partition. How do I do it?
Click to expand...

If you are trying to shrink the C or boot partition then it won't. You will
need third-party software to do this.
A favorite is BootIT NG.
 
Gordon said:
If you are trying to shrink the C or boot partition then it won't. You will
need third-party software to do this.
A favorite is BootIT NG.
Click to expand...

Whch has to be paid for.

Try EASEUS Partition Master... it's free.
 
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