Leaving 0 bytes free in partition

Question

My current windows installation got screwed but the files are fine. I want to install a new windows on a new partition. I thought about leaving 0 bytes free in the current installation partition and creating a new partition on the remaining space using Ubuntu live cd.
My problems are:

1. Is it ok to leave 0 bytes free in the partition if I will never boot it again, only copy files off it?
2. Even if its ok, will gparted shrink it to 0 bytes free without defrag? if it won't, how can I defrag it without booting windows?

Answer 1

It's never a good idea to leave zero bytes free. Even accessing files on some filesystems will increment internal counters in the file system table, or change file access times.

If you really cannot transfer your files to another drive, consider making a new partition, moving your files to the new partition, and re-installing your operating system on the initial partition. Then, move your files back to the initial partition, and re-size it to use the full drive again.

If you have too many files to move, you might have to do some mid-step resizing (e.g. transfer half of the files to the new partition, resize the initial one smaller, make the new one bigger, and so on and so fourth). In any case, it would be really ideal to have a second drive in your system (especially for data contingency reasons).