Cannot shrink partition, despite doing (I think) all the right thi

[Paddy Landau]

I wish to shrink my C drive (which has 50Gb free), in order to expand my
other partition.

Following advice on these and other forums, I did the following before
shrinking my C drive:

1. Disable hibernation.
2. Disable virtual memory and delete C:\pagefile.sys.
4. Delete and disable system restore points.
5. Disable indexing on the drive.
6. Check disk.
7. Defragment with both Vista's built-in defragmenter and, in Safe Mode,
Auslogics Disk Defrag.

Despite all this, I've increased my available shrink size from a mere 2.7Gb
to 3.2Gb. I was hoping to shrink by 20Gb.

From looking at the map on Auslogics, it seems to me that the end of the
partition has some non-moveable disk files.

Do you have any suggestions as to how I can solve this problem and shrink my
C partition?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

All those steps were completely unnecessary. The problem, as Auslogics has
shown you, is a locked immovable file. You won't be able to shrink the
volume beyond the point on the disk where that file lies, and it cannot be
moved while Windows is running. The solution is to use a third party program
that works outside of Windows, ie: runs from a bootable disk, and it should
be able to manipulate the volumes safely (thought there is always an
inherent risk to manipulating volumes, backup data before beginning). Some
that can do this include terabyteunlimited's BootIT NG, and Acronis' Disk
Director. The first can run from a bootable floppy without installing, and
has a free trial period.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Paddy Landau]

Thank you for your advice, Rick.

What a pity that Vista's own shrink program doesn't work!

I'll have a look at those programs that you recommended.