Disk Management displays unknown/unmanageable 1Mb free space

[golem]

This just popped up today and the only thing I can think that I had done since not seeing it was activated AHCI. As can be seen in the attached snip there is a very small partition to the left of the "SSD Common" logical partition. It is bounded by the same green box as the "SSD Common" partition. Hovering over it provides details of it being Free Space 1Mb in size. Right clicking on it provides a menu with everything greyed out except for HELP which simply opens the Disk Management user guide. Should add that both the "SSD General" & "SSD Trade" are W7 bootable partitions with AHCI activated.

Any insight is appreciated.

*edit* -- Oops, meant to place this under Performance & Maintenance.
*edit #2* -- there is also no reference to this 1Mb free space anywhere else on the disk management console (additional info since I failed in posting the full snip. ).

 

[whs]

You could play around with it an extend partition F to the left with Partition Wizard. But why bother. It is such a small sliver.

 

[AddRAM]

That would bother me to no end. Is there no way you can copy the contents to C: format F: then replace the files ?

What is F: Common anyway ? Something that has to stay on the ssd ?

 

[golem]

Thanks for the replies!

Yeah, it's just a small sliver but totally begs for one to question how and why it appeared.

The bootable partitions are for separation of work and personal but I do have a few items I like to cross over such as mail and other documents. I originally created the "SSD Common" drive to hold items like the PST et. al.. In hind sight I likely could do without it as, unlike my misconception, the non-active partition IS accessible while booted into the other. This should allow me to direct paths to just one of the bootable primaries allowing for deletion of the "SSD Common" partition (as long as it permissions).

Barring the above (which I'll likely do), I may attempt partition juggling to see if that 1Mb can be absorbed since it doesn't seem to be of any operational importance.

 

[AddRAM]

Get the files off, delete the partition then reformat it. It should then be perfect. Put your files back on it.

 

[golem]

Since you sig reads "..just keep asking"

Figured I'd give a format/rebuild of that partition a quick try prior to seeing if making a user folder on one of the bootable partitions common to both is possible. Well, to my surprise, and I'm sure yours, formatting that "SSD Common" partition did not consume the 1Mb partition. I then deleted the partition and that DID consume the miniscule partition making one large unallocated partition. Upon reformatting, bingo, that itty bitty partition reappears as before. Btw, just thought of one more thing I did earlier today and that was to use the Intel SSD Toolbox on the new SSD. Ran the optimizer and the tweaker. I believe the optimizer basically did trim while the tweaker prompted to adjust superfetch/prefetch which I allowed. Not sure if any of these would have influenced the creation of a persistent 1Mb partition.

I'm also going to give it a try but, since you're here, do you think it possible to point Outlook to a user's folder on another bootable partition to access the PST?

 

[AddRAM]

Did you delete it until it was unallocated space ? ( black )

What is this other bootable partition you are talking about ? I only see 1 on your drive.

And it`s not a 1 MB partition, it`s 1 MB of free space in an extended partition. Look at the color chart below it in disk management.

Have you installed Partition Wizard yet ?

http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

I always recommend making and using a partition wizard boot cd to make or manipulate partitions, it`s easier, faster and safer than using disk management. But that is strictly my opinion.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

 

[golem]

Delete to unallocated space was the only way to get rid of the 1Mb partition. Not sure if you can see but in the original snip of disk management I had clicked on the 1Mb partition and it is hashed while the larger one (also bound in the same green box) is not. Conversely if I click the larger partition it is hashed while the smaller is not. Thay act independent in that scenario but deleting just the larger takes them both out and into one unallocated partition.

"SSD General" and "SSD Trade" are both bootable partitions. I have EasyBCD installed on the "SSD General" partition.

 

[golem]

Yikes, not sure how that happened but only your first two sentences were showing when I responded. I look now and you have more.

I really must get to bed now so I'll put to use your insight and suggestions in the morning. And yes you are correct, I keep calling it partition instead of the Free Space that it is (I did call it that in my first post, not sure why I reverted.)

Thanks again. Will reply tomorrow.

 

[AddRAM]

2 seperate areas will not hash at the same time. That just means you are highlighting it. I have no idea what you mean by them being bootable. These are the methods I use, maybe someone else may have a clue. It may have something to do with the ssd drive alignment.

Sleep well

 

[golem]

2 seperate areas will not hash at the same time. That just means you are highlighting it.

Was just my effort to accentuate they were separate entities while still part of the same partition, verified by both being changed into a single unallocated space when the larger was deleted.

I have no idea what you mean by them being bootable.

"SSD General" & "SSD Trade" are both boot volumes with each containing a unique Win7 operating system. Maybe incorrectly I call them "bootable partitions". "SSD System Reserved" contains the system volume.

These are the methods I use, maybe someone else may have a clue. It may have something to do with the ssd drive alignment.

I did download the Partition Wizard and to my surprise it displayed 3 1Mb unallocated entities. The one you still see in the attached snip, one at the other end and another between "SSD System reserved" and "SSD General". Using the Wizard I simply deleted the "SSD Common" and absorbed the resulting free space into the existing partitions. The 1Mb free space that still remains seems to be untouchable due to its location, not going to fret over that one.

Out of curiosity I decided to run the Intel utility again after making these changes to see if it would recreated those 1Mb free spaces, as can be seen none were created. So the method of creation remains a mystery. I also found that Outlook can share a PST file even though it is located on the boot volume of one of the installed OS's and in the app-created user folder. Due to this I decided there was no need to recreate the "SSD Common" partition.

In a nutshell, I'm Done!

Thanks much for your interest and help. Will also keep that MiniTool Partition Wizard handy as it looks to be a very versatile tool, appreciate the heads-up on that one.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

sometimes it's normal to have such free spaces around. It's due to complicated technical reasons, basically the partitions have to be aligned with the hardware sectors or something like that, if it isn't performance degrades as non-aligned partitions will require more read/write cycles to get the same data.

If after you try as suggested it still doesn't disappear, it's probably like I said and the program generating the partitions is smart enough to align the partitions correctly, "wasting" a few MB none will feel the loss of anyway.

Since you did manage to erase some of them, check that the partition alignment is still correct. I rarely use tools for SSDs, others can suggest what to use.