partitioning with vista disk management: strange size

[Guest]

Disk management reports free space on my partition to be 79GB. When I try to
shrink the partition, it reports that available shrink space is 34GB. Where
is the rest and how do I get my hands on it?

 

[Michal Kawecki]

Disk management reports free space on my partition to be 79GB. When I
try to
shrink the partition, it reports that available shrink space is 34GB.
Where
is the rest and how do I get my hands on it?

Turn off System Restore on that partition.

 

[Richard Urban]

It is telling you that you can shrink the partition a maximum of 34 gig. You
can not free up any more space than this. The partition can be resized down
to where the utility bumps into the first unmovable "system" file on the
system partition.

To shrink the partition further you have to use a 3rd party application
(Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 build 2160 works fine) and perform the
partition manipulations after booting up the computer using the emergency
repair CD that the program allows you to create. When you boot as such, you
are not constrained by locked files and such. The Vista operating is not
running - therefore no files are locked. They all can be moved when you
shrink the partition.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Guest]

Thank you guys. I could check only the turning off restore point suggestion.
Now the volume available for shrinking is what I expected (plus, it seemed to
free some extra space where the restore point was kept).
Plus, it was good to find out that acronis works with Vista now (See thread

 

[Andy Sweet [MSFT]]

System Restore is still a good thing, though. Here's a way to avoid
forgetting to turn System Restore back on (and thereby not having it when
you need it): use Disk Cleanup to remove most (but not all) restore points:

Choose the "Files from all users on this computer option" in Disk Cleanup,
and then click the More Options tab. You'll see an option to remove all but
the most recent restore point. This will free a good deal of disk space and
also keep System Restore running.