Disk Management Problems

[clydefrog]

Hello,

I trying to use windows 7's disk management tool to create a new partition, however it doesnt seem to be working.

I select my appropriate disk and select "shrink volume" but then it shows me that i have 0MB available to partition. This is strange because i have a 650GB HDD with almost 260GB free.

I tried using command prompt do partition, but it said the same thing; "0MB of reclaimable bytes" or something like that. I used disk clean up, i defragged, and i searched online; nothing helped.

Any help?

I'm trying to dual boot XP, and i really dont want to reformat windows 7 just to be able to install XP.

thanks in advance

 

[Zenthar]

How are your partitions right now, one big C: drive with 650GB (260GB of which are free)?

 

[tizz]

Hmm I've never used Windows built in tools to do that, but i just checkd on my netbook and after calculating disk space it told me the totaly size of the current partion, and then avalible to shrink it by (was the free space basicly) So if you have 260GB free you should be able to shrink it, unless it needs more free space than used to be able to move all the files about as it re-aranges the file structure of the current partition.

But thats me guesing on that one, hopefuly someone with experience can shed more light.

btw clydefrog needs to come back in SP

 

[Zenthar]

On a related note, why do you want to install Windows XP, games or applications? If just for regular apps, have you though about just using a VM, it would be simpler than dual-boot.

 

[clydefrog]

@zenthar Yes it is just one big C drive with 260gb of free space. Also im trying to dual boot xp because a certain game I have isn't working well on win7 x64 (black ops). People have reported better performance from xp. Im desperate at the moment lol.

@tizz hmm...interesting. ill try to lool into that. U know of any 3rd party partion software? Lol and ya clydefrog was awesome!

I've dual booted vista and xp before. I never had any problems; this is weird...

Thanks guys

 

[Zenthar]

My guess is you cannot shrink the partition from Windows because it's the OS partition and it's currently being used and/or files are already located in "further" on the disk. Maybe you can try a defrag before shrinking.

 

[clydefrog]

My guess is you cannot shrink the partition from Windows because it's the OS partition and it's currently being used and/or files are already located in "further" on the disk. Maybe you can try a defrag before shrinking.

I was kind of thinking the same. I though maybe i hit some unmovable files or something.

I already tried both defraging and disk clean up.

would you happen to know of any good 3rd party disk management software?

 

[henydiah]

cannot parttion because HDD under protect with OS
u must make parttion when installed OS & at the disk management format /make new parttion at Fresh HDD/Partition

 

[ricno]

cannot parttion because HDD under protect with OS

This is not correct in Windows 7. You can actually both expand and shrink the OS partition under use.

To clydefrog:

The problem is most likely that you have data on the back of the C partition that must be moved off before you can resize it.

The builtin graphic defragment tool does unfortunaly not give all options you have.

First try this with the command line defrag tool, run a command prompt (must run as an administrator) and type:

defrag C: -x -w -v

This tries to consolidate all free space and also moves file fragments larger than 64 MB which is normally not needed from a performance point of view, but will be good here.

If your resizing still does not work after this I could point you to a good 3rd party tool.

 

[clydefrog]

This is not correct in Windows 7. You can actually both expand and shrink the OS partition under use.

To clydefrog:

The problem is most likely that you have data on the back of the C partition that must be moved off before you can resize it.

The builtin graphic defragment tool does unfortunaly not give all options you have.

First try this with the command line defrag tool, run a command prompt (must run as an administrator) and type:

defrag C: -x -w -v

This tries to consolidate all free space and also moves file fragments larger than 64 MB which is normally not needed from a performance point of view, but will be good here.

If your resizing still does not work after this I could point you to a good 3rd party tool.

thanks for the reply.

i tried the cmd defrag again, but it didnt help.

i guess i'm going to need to use a 3rd party application. Any recommendations as to which ones?

thanks

 

[ricno]

i guess i'm going to need to use a 3rd party application. Any recommendations as to which ones?

Try PerfectDisk, there is a trial version. I have used that to shrink partitions on Win7 that was not possible before.

 

[henydiah]

go bios set HDD IDE to ACHI

 

[clydefrog]

Try PerfectDisk, there is a trial version. I have used that to shrink partitions on Win7 that was not possible before.

yep that did it! Thanks a lot!

that perfect disk is a pretty neat utility too.

i love ya man

 

[clydefrog]

Best answer selected by clydefrog.