Windows 7: help regarding partitioning

well i have a 5oo gb hard disk....abour which 15gb was reserved for the recovery drive and the rest was for my os's drive(i.e c)....i wanted to install ubuntu so i shrinked the volume using disk management tool and created a 28 gb drive F a few months back....now as my system is running slow and i have some other issues i want to format my os and reinstall it...but the problem is that out of 422gb in drive C(presently) i just have 120 gb around free and i want to back up my movies and all....so what i decide to do is to again shrink drive c using disk management to create another partition ....it says that i can shrink my drive c max. upto 789 mb even though i have more than 100gb free...please help me out...

Chances are you have system files near the end of your partition, preventing you from shrinking it any further than 789MB while in windows. What I would suggest is boot to linux and use gparted to shrink the windows partition as much as possible, move your movies and other files into the new partition, then shrink it to about 60 GB before reinstalling windows. If you keep your media separate from your programs, your system won't slow down as much over time and you have the added benefit if not having to worry about backing things up again before reinstalling windows in the future

The reason Windows won’t let you shrink the volume beyond a limit is that there are immovable system files such as the MFT (Master file table) at the very end of the volume. If you run a defrag utility like Auslogics, it'll show you what it is.

To workaround this, try temporarily disabling some system files.

1) Run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, making sure to remove the hibernation file and all restore points.

2) Disable System restore.

Now run a defrag utility like Auslogics (linked above) to move all files to the beginning of the volume. If MFT is blocking the shrink, you'll need to use a 3rd party utility like Perfect Disk or MyDefrag to move it, since windows cannot handle that.

Defrag Comparison | Automatic Defragmentation | Professional Defragmenter - PerfectDisk

MyDefrag v4.3.1

Now, you should be able to shrink to a respectable amount. Remember to turn on hibernation, system restore etc. that you disabled earlier.

thanku to both of u.....i would rather try 'madtownidiot;s " solution first....so please can you help and explain to me how can i boot to linux and then use gparted ...and will this thing ensure that the resultant drive after shrinking is around 60 gb

I was under the assumption that you tried linux and already had it installed, however, if you have the image file or the live install cd and a 1 GB flash drive, you can boot linux from that. Otherwise you can get ubuntu here. You can burn it to cd or dvd or use uNetbootin to make a bootable flash drive. Once you've got the ubuntu desktop up, you'll find gparted by clicking on the system dropdown menu and selecting administration (upper left). Gparted has the ability to move partitions into free space too, but moving a large partition can take hours, so I would only do it once, when you've freed enough space on your system partition to shrink it to 60 gb, then move your media partition to the left and expand it to fill the rest of the free space. Since you're planning to reinstall windows anyway, you won't have to worry about damaging system files. You can create free space in your hdd by deleting the windows folder and the program files folders, and Gparted will compact everything into the gaps created when you shrink the partition. You'll have manually empty the trash after deleting anything in order to create free space. (lower right corner of the ubuntu desktop).. (or you can simply format the partition after you have everything you need, and resize it to whatever you want)...The interface is pretty easy to use, just be sure to format any new partitions you make to NTFS. (Default is ext file system used by linux, which can't be read by windows) Another thing, move your personal files and media out of the users folder (My documents, My music, etc) if your account is password protected before going into linux or you might not be able to find them. Good luck and if you have any questions, please ask before doing something when you don't know for sure what's going to happen... wish my customers would listen to me when I say that..

thnx a ton for ur advice....well it was my mistake and i uninstalled ubuntu a few days ago..and i dont even have the setup right now...so till it gets downlaoded ...i am trying bill2's method ..i.e. moving the mft files to the beginning ..if it does not work i'll definitely try ur solution too....

You're welcome.. let me know how it goes. My solution is practical only if you already have the software. 700 MB takes a while to download even on a gigabit university network. On the other hand, it's only media, and easily replaced.

well it would jsut take me 3 hrs more to download the software ...so if this doesnt work i'll definitely go for ur solution..

I did something similar for a friend, took me about 7 hours to move 290 GB of music and movies off of a 465GB partition with only 110 GB of free space without an external HDD because I left it at home. (never going to do that again)... but it's worth it afterwards. You have the right idea. When you're done, your system will start up and shut down faster than it did when it was new. Getting all of your media off your system partition means that program and system files are all closer together and can therefore be read/written to faster... I can make a 4 year old pentium d laptop with 2GB of ram and a 160GB hdd just as responsive and faster on startup and shutdown than almost any new I7 system is right off the shelf just by setting it up the way I do (small os partition; hibernation, autoplay, notification balloons disabled; a few minor registry tweaks, all non essential services either disabled or on delayed start up) Anyway, I'll be checking to see how things go

Having User files on a separate partition is a good idea as it acts as a data vault in case your OS won't start so that you can reinstall Windows 7 and programs without having to touch your data on its own partition. Even better is to have page file on a separate HD read faster by its own laser.

However as beta users here learned the hard way over a year's time, tweaking Windows 7 beyond regular settings is not necessary as it is already perfectly balanced. It can be hard to unravel, too, and often becomes quicksand.

If you insist on tweaking your Windows 7, then take advantage of the built-in drive imaging to save a Windows 7 backup image externally right after it is clean installed and set up perfectly, but before getting tweaky.