Shrink OS Volume

Perfect Disk: Rightclick the disk or partition you want to Defrag, select Offline Defrag, then System. It reboots and completes task.

As I said I stopped using it because PW has proved to be the actual Perfect Disk tool.

I'm not a Novice to Partition Wizard and have used it often.
However, I used for the first time the other day on my OS (Boot,...) partition to shrink it to a size able to accommodate an SSD. Sorry to say it moved files and screwed up! The MFT wasn't the issue.
I recovered from an image and completed the job. But take WHS's advice early in the thread and basically be prepared to recover from a PW foul up.

Also, if you ever invoke your factory recovery you'll be back to the old partition structure.

Well, I decided that I had put off using Partition Wizard for long enough. The process was rather simple really. It performed as stated with one exception. During the resizing operation, before I clicked Apply and started the resizing I was never offered the opportunity to retain or change the partition letter. I was not offered the opportunity to assign a letter after the operation was completed. I've spent the past three hours trying to find an answer to the problem, to no avail.

I'm concerned that without a letter for the OS partition the computer may fail to boot into Windows, even though with this Dell the boot is initiated from the Recovery partition. I've taken all the actions stipulated in the Help menu but "Change Volume Letter" and "Change Drive Letter" are grayed out and not available. I did highlight the OS partition and then clicked on the "Change Volume Label", which was not grayed out, and the OS partition is indeed labeled as "OS" but I'm still a little hesitant to simply exit the application and attempt a boot.

I'm on my laptop now. The desktop, which is where I shrank the OS partition, is sitting there doing nothing, with the Partition Wizard on hold. Oh well, what can I say? I was hoping one of you would still be awake and has encountered this issue in the past and would know either what I'm doing wrong or what I'm failing to do.

I'll let the desktop sit there all night and half of tomorrow with Partition Wizard running if I can overcome this problem, or learning through the past experience of others that the computer will boot properly I'll attempt a boot.

I'm not overly concerned about it. If it doesn't boot properly I can always try a repair with the installation DVD first, and if that fails I can use one of my Acronis or Windows Backup and Restore backups, even though I realize I'll be trying to put an image of a 900GB+ partition onto a 200GB partition. I bet that's going to be a swell deal. If push comes to shove I'll simply do a clean install. I don't get too excited over anything. It accomplishes nothing.

arkhi said:

Windows assigns a letter to your primary installation itself. I'm not sure if this is "virtual" or "actual" but in Win7, you will notice that the primary disk that you booted from would always be C:\. This is especially noticeable on multi-boot systems.

Besides, you can also use diskpart later on.

Hello, arkhi. I don't know why, but with Dell the Recovery partition is the active partition and the boot is initiated from there. I'm not so sure it will be able to recognize my OS partition. My Recovery partition was not tampered with during the resizing (shrinking) of my OS partition, the OS partition taking up over 900GB on the drive. I shrank it down to 200GB but now it does not have a letter. It is labeled as *. I've learned that many other people have had this problem using Partition Wizard but I have not as of yet seen the answer to the problem. I'll probably just pull the CD, exit the application and see what happens. Live and learn.

I appreciate your input.

Hello again, arkhi. I decided to just go for it. The computer booted in a most excellent manner. Hopefully, I won't experience any problems with all the programs working properly. I think I'm OK. I went to Computer and there it was, labeled as C, just as it is supposed to be.

I now have a 200 GB OS partition (C) and a 700GB+ unallocated partition. Of course, I still have the Dell utility partition, which is first and contains a few MB and the Dell Recovery partition, which is the second and contains a few GB. These three partitions are all primary partitions. In your opinion, would it be better to use Windows Disk Management to format this 700GB+ unallocated space and then shrink it so that I end up with two logical partitions or use Partition Wizard to slice this big partition into two partitions, reboot and then let Windows Disk Management format each partition?

Thank you again for your time and your assistance.

C.B.

As always, whs, I appreciate your time and your assistance. I'll do everything from within Disk Management. I'm going to bed. It's been a long day.

C.B.

Now you have 3 primary partitions and 700MB of unallocated space.

To create additional partitions in this space, just use windows disk management. Create a simple volume and select the size of the first partiton you wish to have (for ex. 350 GB). An extended partition is created for the entire 700 GB and a logical drive of 350 GB inside this extended partition. Right click again in the free space and select all the available area and a second logical drive of another 350 GB will be created. You can reduce the values and get more logical drives in extended partition if you desire.

You have not mentioned whether MyDefrag did the job of bringing the files together or not?