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I'm trying to shrink the main partition on my new PC with Windows 7 64-bit preloaded from 500 GB to 100 GB.

Unfortunately, some files prevent any attempt to go below 290 GB.

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I have already disabled restore points, as somebody had suggested, but nothing changes. What do I have to do to further shrink this partition?

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2 Answers 2

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NTFS has some additional, hidden metadata it usually puts around the middle of a partition. It, in my experience, can't be moved around except by some proprietary software.

The now-defunct Partition Magic could move the MFT around, and a quick search shows that this may be able to move it around, too. There's a trial version available, so perhaps that might work.

There's also MyDefrag, a highly configurable disk defragmenter app that provides some facilities for defragmenting the MFT. In my experience, I could not succeed in getting it to move all of the metadata preventing my resize, but perhaps it'll work for you.

Having dealt with this hassle before, though, I would strongly advise that you consider backing up this partition's data and re-creating it anew, if only to save time and many a headache.

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  • ok, I followed your suggestion and recreated the partition.
    – user35231
    Apr 26, 2010 at 21:36
  • +1 - sometimes the easiest solution is just to do what you know works - backup, reformat, restore.
    – JBRWilkinson
    Aug 10, 2010 at 10:22
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If your pagefile is on C:, then perhaps disable or move it to the different drive (at least until you're done defragging and resizing).

You can also try out GPartEd for resizing and moving the partitions around, it's free.

As Dylan mentioned in his answer, a backup is always a good idea when moving/changing partitions. :)

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