Shrinking my 7 partition, where do I want the unallocated space to be?

My 7 install to my SSD didn't go exactly as I'd like. The OS is on a huge partition I want to shrink it using Partition Wizard.

I see from reading about it, you can either have the unallocated, free space in front of or behind the shrunken partition.

The next partition behind the 7 one, is my Linux partition that I'd like to enlarge a bit. To me it would make sense to have that unallocated space ahead of the Linux one so I can use it. Am I thinking correctly? I do have an image of all my drives just to make sure.... :)

Thanks to all in advance!

For a mechanical HD I'd want Win7 in first position closest to where the reader parks for faster reads. Put the Linux partition to its right and then storage to the right of it.

If you already have existing adjacent partitions you can adjust their size using How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help.

Post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image and tell us what you want to do so we can give you informed steps.

Disk management is very limited in what it can do for shrinking a partition size especially the windows partition. Easus is much better. EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download.com

gregrocker said:

For a mechanical HD I'd want Win7 in first position closest to where the reader parks for faster reads. Put the Linux partition to its right and then storage to the right of it.

If you already have existing adjacent partitions you can adjust their size using How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help.

Post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image and tell us what you want to do so we can give you informed steps.

Here's the screenshot you asked for. As you can see my storage drive is a separate HDD not a partition on the SSD. You can also see that I was never able sort out making the SSD Drive 0 and not Drive 1. No matter when the OS sees it all the drive letters are correct. I just won't look at them in DM!

I read an article showing how to shrink drives w/ Partition Wizard, that raised the question where should the unallocated space appear, since I want to use it for Linux, to the right of the 7 partition.

Thanks as always

J T

I'd use the Partition Wizard bootable CD burned to disk using Windows Image burner, following the steps How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help to see if you can extend the Linux partition the easy way by annexing some of the unused space in C. It may require temporarily issuing the partition a drive letter for PW to Extend it, although it should work since PW supports any partition format.

If not then you can shrink C in Disk Mgmt which is always safest, then try moving the Linux partition left border to the left using Partition Wizard Resize Partition - Video Help. However if PW will Resize only the left border then it should Extend which does it all for you including the shrink. Extend will borrow space from any partition whether it is adjacent or not.

Let us know how this goes.

gregrocker said:

I'd use the Partition Wizard bootable CD burned to disk using Windows Image burner, following the steps How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help to see if you can extend the Linux partition the easy way by annexing some of the unused space in C. It may require temporarily issuing the partition a drive letter for PW to Extend it, although it should work since PW supports any partition format.

If not then you can shrink C in Disk Mgmt which is always safest, then try moving the Linux partition left border to the left using Partition Wizard Resize Partition - Video Help. However if PW will Resize only the left border then it should Extend which does it all for you including the shrink. Extend will borrow space from any partition whether it is adjacent or not.

Let us know how this goes.

DM won't let me shrink the C any smaller than it is, it must be using the files it surely isn't full. The OS and all my programs only use 41GB.

So I will use PW to do the work and maybe Gparted too for the Linux stuff.

You're right I have a fresh image of everything so if it goes amiss I can bail out...famous last words! Plus I still have the original HDD that has everything on it but isn't being used anymore. My backups have backups!

I'll let you guys know. Thanks

The only tool that has never failed besides Disk Mgmt in tens of thousands of these operations we've helped with here is PW boot disk.