How to shrink Windows 7 boot partition with unmovable files

I have just bought X201 laptop with Windows 7 (64 bit). It has 320 GB HDD with three partitions: small hidden system partition, 9 GiB Lenovo recovery partition, and 280 GiB C: boot partition.

I would like to split this large C: partition into 4 partitions, leaving only 70 GiB for system, and giving the rest to new data partitions.

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 X201 laptops don't come with OS installation disks (they only allow you to create recovery disks yourself), 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: Someone suggested some solutions but they didn't work.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Use Partition Manager 11 Personal to defrag and then use Disk Management to shrink.

Please suggest only proven solutions.

 

I've done this three times so far because Dell kept replacing my HDDs. Studio 1558 has a 500GB hard drive, partitioned from factory to a 55MB partition, 8.6GB factory image, and the remainder to Windows 7.

The biggest problem is getting the system files that sit in the middle of the disk to move. Some people suspect it's the MFT, but I don't think so. Anyway:

1. I disabled the paging file, deleted and disabled system restore, and (in Administrator cmd.exe) powercfg.exe -h off to disable hibernation.
2. Windows 7 Defrag, then shrank to exactly half
3. Reboot.
4. Try to shrink (again), but you might fail.
5. Get rid of all the crap with CCleaner (again)
6. Run Win7 defrag again, defrag the HDD with w/Auslogics BoostSpeed, defrag the registry w/the same.
7. Reboot.

Repeat 4 - 7 over and over again til it works. Sometimes it'll only give up 1GB, other times it'll jump by half or more. Eventually it'll succeed and let you go down to the bare minimum, though I'm not sure why. The MFT clearly shows up near the end of my partitions, but it seems like Shrink is willing to move it on a whim. It's the other unidentified files (I didn't bother to find out what they were) that were blocking.

Right now, I shrank my Win7 partition to 100GB, the rest is split between two other partitions for other storage.

 

Or simply use any partitioning software and dod it in 5 minutes without any of the steps listed by woofer00

 

When I did this ages a go i found booting in to safe mode helped as it reduced the number of files that where being accessed

 

I've done that by using Partition Wizard Home Edition (it's free). I'm not sure about things that should be disable but it works for me.

 

As much as I love snarky responses, if you'd bothered to read the first post, you'd see he already mentioned partitioning software and was asking about other methods that worked. He noted that he already tried the programs I listed without success. I added in a tool that made it work from within the OS, without using a third party partition manager or reinstalling the entire OS.

FYI, if you move the MFT with a third party partition manager from outside Windows (i.e. GParted off a LiveCD), it will not boot properly. You need to have a Recovery Disc (not everyone burns one) or an install disc (manufacturers are starting to withhold them) to go into recovery mode and repair the mft (basically just fix the pointer off the mbr and ntldr).