Shrink volume past 50%

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Jozef · #1 Post by **Jozef** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 8:14 pm

How can I make Vista partition smaller?

I have a fresh installation of Vista Ultimate 32. The disk management tells me that out of 300Gb on my HDD 272Gb are free (28Gb? you frickin' kidding me?). I want to shrink the volume to about 40-45Gb and the rest use for Kubuntu and a shared FAT partition. Problem is, the disk management says it can shrink the volume to 150Gb (exactly 50% in megabyte count) which immensely sucks.
Also, it won't let me shrink it again, even thought partition details don't show any files anywhere close to the end of the partition.

I am not exactly an expert (especially in Vista, this is my first half-serious contact with it) so I hope it's just my vast ignorance that's preventing me do this.

#2 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 8:36 pm

I have Vista Ultimate 32 installed on a 40Gb hard drive with space to spare. Yeah, 28Gb sounds roughly about right, although I am not booted up in Vista now to check.

You need to defragment your hard drive first, then boot up a partition management utility such as Partition Magic or GParted to shrink the partition.

#3 Post by **jdhurst** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:01 pm

While I appreciate I have all my documents on my computer as well as a few virtual machines, my Vista Business 64-bit install takes about 90 Gb. I have half my hard drive free. So do go carefully on how little you give Vista. ... JDH

Jozef · #4 Post by **Jozef** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 12:06 am

I will give Vista as much space as it needs, but 150Gb is too much. I will sooner give up on it then give it that much space.
edit: just to reiterate, this is a fresh installation. It doesn't contain a single personal file and I removed the Office, SQL Server and some other things it came with that I won't need.

Anyway, I had tried gparted before installing Vista again. Reduced the Vista partition to 60Gb, installed Kubuntu, and that was it - I couldn't boot into Vista again. Gparted doesn't tell me where I am allowed to cut - I do know Vista is about 27Gb but obviously there is something that kills Vista even when I give it almost three times as much space as it allegedly needs. So I am reluctant to go that way again.

Any other ideas? Anyone has any idea what could be the reason for disk management tool not being able to shrink the volume more than exactly 50%?
The bottom line is I want Vista and Kubuntu dual boot (not VM setup).

p.s. - I can't go the Kubuntu first, Vista second path because I am working with recovery disks which will destroy everything it their path.

#5 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 12:34 am

GParted can work. See the following posts I found with 10 minute Google search.

http://kalisen.wordpress.com/2008/06/21 ... n-the-t61/

https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Dual_boot_Vist ... nkpad_x61s

Jozef · #6 Post by **Jozef** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:28 am

I don't think those links provide a solution to my problem, but they are helpful in other ways.

What I did is followed these instructions
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows- ... -problems/
but Auslogics Defrag tool showed MFT at exactly 50% of my HDD. So now I am looking if I can move the MFT somewhere closer to the rest of Vista.

Will report in 10 minutes if it worked or not.

#7 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:35 am

Jozef wrote:installed Kubuntu, and that was it - I couldn't boot into Vista again.

The cause and effect here seems fairly straight forward... you've damaged the boot record as far as Vista is concerned!

See The definitive dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step

Cheers,

Bill B.

Jozef · #8 Post by **Jozef** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:11 am

Hi Bill,

yep, that's exactly what I used after my first attempt failed i.e. that's where I learned about Vista's disk management tool. But then I couldn't resize the partition to anything smaller than 150Gb, which turned out to be due to the MFT being placed at that exact location.

Now I am trying to figure out if I can move it but it's not looking good.

Jozef · #9 Post by **Jozef** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:45 am

It won't budge.

The MTF file is sitting at 150Gb of my HDD and it won't move. I downloaded a 30-day trial of PerfectDisk, which can defrag and "consolidate space" during reboot, including hibernation and paging files, which I just did but the [censored] thing is still there.

Help? Pretty please?

Edit. Made it, somewhat... After hitting the disk with an avalanche of various defrags, Vista's disk management tool suddenly allowed the partition to go down to 75Gb (50% again?!). I might try to do it again and go down a bit more, but I think I can live with 75Gb too...

Anyway, if anyone has problem like this, PerfectDrive can work offline (during boot) and include all those nasty files you otherwise can't touch.

Jozef · #10 Post by **Jozef** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:05 am

I still can't shrink the volume more than 50% in each try, but at least it doesn't prevent me from doing it over again and getting the size down to what I want by repeating the process. I went from 300Gb partition to 150Gb to 75Gb and finally decided to stop at 50Gb.

Follow the steps from the link in my post above. This is it, more or less:
1. Run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, making sure to remove the hibernation file and all restore points.
(right click on the volume you want to shrink, Properties)
2. Disable System Restore
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows- ... ows-vista/
3. Disable the pagefile
(Open up System in Control Panel, then Advanced System Settings \ Advanced \ Performance \ Advanced \ Change \ No Paging File)
4. In the same Advanced Settings, go to Startup and Recovery \ Settings and then change the Write debugging information drop-down to "None" to disable the kernel memory dump.
5. Disable Hibernation mode in your power options \ advanced power options screen.
(Start Menu, type "cmd" in Search, right click on Command Prompt, Run as administrator, type powercfg –h off)
6. Reboot the machine, and then delete your c:\pagefile.sys file, following these instructions if you are having issues.... - NOT NECESSARY, I couldn't erase pagefile.sys using several suggestions found online but I still shrunk the volume.
7. Download a 30-day trial of "PerfectDisk 2008 Professional" here
http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/
8. Perform the drive analysis, choose AutoPilot, schedule a one-time run in two-three minute time (give it a name, all drives, Defrag Method: defrag files, offline defrag of system files, choose Defragment with SMARTPlacement and check that all four file types below are checked (especially the Master File Tables, metadata, hibernation and paging files).
9. After reboot, open PerfectDisk again and it will continue defrag. This might take a while (about 30min for my fresh installation).
Note: After it's done, the MFT will still be in the same place, but don't worry.
10. Open Disk Management again and choose Shrink.

To shrink more than 50%, repeat 10 or, if it won't let you, repeat steps 8-10.

Edit. Oh, and don't forget to change back what you did in 1-5. To activate hibernation, replace "off" in the command above with "on"

Shrink volume past 50%

Shrink volume past 50%

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