Question

I have just bought HP laptop with Windows 7 (64 bit). It has 500 GB HDD with three partitions: small hidden system partition, 12 GiB HP recovery partition, and 450 GiB C: boot partition.

I would like to split this large C: partition into two partitions, leaving only 100 GiB for system, and giving the rest to new data partition.

Although Windows built-in Disk Management utility has an option to shrink the bootable partition, it only allows me to shrink it roughly by half, even though only 20 GiB on the partition is used. As far as I understand, system unmovable files lie in the middle of the partition, preventing Disk Management utility to do what I want.

And since new HP laptops don't come with OS installation disks (they only allow you to create recovery disks youself), I can't just repartition HDD and then reinstall OS.

So, is there any way to shrink C: bootable partition and preserve Windows 7 working?

P.S.: I have tried to use 3rd party GParted utility, and after shrinking the partition Windows 7 stopped booting with BSOD. System recovery didn't work, and I had to do factory recover. Since this is a long process, I would like to avoid doing it again :) So, please, suggest only proven solutions.

Answer 1

first i would backup the system partition (e.g. with Symantec Ghost v11 Enterprise). and for good measure also image the ENTIRE drive (you can restore much faster than with HP's restore facility).

then delete the C: drive and create 2 new partitions to your likings with a partitioning tool of your choice. then deploy the image of the former C: drive to the first partition.

Answer 2

If I was you, I would give Gparted another try, it can be used as a Linux boot disk and can resize disks very well.

If you take a look at the download page, there is a warning with a bug relating to NTFS disks so you may want to try a previous version.

WARNING: Recently there have been several reports of problems when resizing file systems using gparted-live-0.5.0-3. In the case of the NTFS file system, The error message seen after the partition is resized is:

  ERROR: Current NTFS volume size is bigger than the device size!

The problem appears to be related to the combination of packages, Linux kernel, and patches used in the GParted Live image. We are investigating to find the root cause of the problem. Until this problem is solved we recommend GParted Live 0.4-6-1 for resizing all file systems.

Answer 3

Some Windows files are unmovable, and are unhelpfully allocated by Windows at the end or middle of the disk, so that one can only shrink C up to a limit. Which is exactly what you have discovered : the disk cannot be further reduced without destroying Windows.

The only solution is to reinstall Windows in a smaller partition. In your case, you will need to delete the existing system partition and divide it into two partitions via a 3rd-party tool, then restore Windows into the first partition on the disk. Do not touch the restore partition!

I suggest using Paragon Partition Manager 2010 Free Edition as having a good user interface. Otherwise you can use any other tool such as GParted.

Answer 4

In the low level tasks like working with HDD system partition I prefer to use native tools as much as possible, and switch to 3rd party tools only as a last resort, if none of native tools worked. So, directed by harrymc, I gave Windows Disk Management another try.

I first turned Virtual Memory and System Restore off, removed System Volume Information folders, and after that Disk Management utility allowed me to shrink C: partition as much as I needed. After that I turned the features back on.

There is one small native system utility that helped me to identify what is blocking my partition - fsutil. It can show you what is exactly the file that occupies some certain cluster. (Run fsutil volume querycluster /? for command usage). And to find the number of unmoveable cluster that is preventing Disk Management utility to shrink the partition, you can see Event Viewer for event 259. Or you can just calculate this cluster number given the available space to shrink the partition by and the cluster size.

Anyway, a filename will give you a hint to guess, what program or feature is locking your partition. And then you can turn it off or uninstall, and see if it helped. In my case turning off Virtual Memory and System Restore was enough. Sometimes it is also necessary to turn off hibernation, etc. And sometimes partition defragmentation may also help.

P.S.: Thanks everyone for answers. Probably 3rd party tools would also work in my case, and probably they are easier to use, but as I have already told, for such kind of tasks I prefer to use native tools as much as possible. Also, personal thanks to harrymc for the important hint.

Answer 5

I would try Easeus Partition manager, its free for home use and usually do a better job at managing disks than the built in Windows one. Also you dont have to burn it to a disk.

Answer 6

Thank you so much this was very helpful and it worked as magic without any 3rd party programs or any thing

your post 'the question' and then your update on how you solved your problem are very helpful and you really deserve a big thank you

Thanks You Alex Che =)

Answer 7

Trying Gparted 4.1 on a new AMD 64 bit Quad Core with 1 Terabyte of disk. Why all the Buffer I/O error messages at startup?

Finally tries to run the product and I get an Out of Range error on monitor. I've got a ATI video card.

Ive used this product countless times on on other desktops with no problems.

I Download Gparted 5.1 and am loading it now... it's taking for forever to load.. also, still seeing all those Buffer I/O errors.

Answer 8

I would suggest you use Acronis True Image with Universal Restore. This will help you create image and write back that image to any size of partition or on different system also.