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

[Tinsby]

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!

 

[gregrocker]

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.

 

[townsbg]

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

 

[AddRAM]

Put windows to the left and have the un allocated space to the right, as shown in disk management.

 

[Tinsby]

Here you go...

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

 

[AddRAM]

That board is wee bit old, does it have Intel 6.0 GBs sata ports ?

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/RAMPAGE_EXTREME/

Is the ssd connected to the 1st Intel 6.0 GBps sata port? (Check physically and check in the bios)

Did you install the latest Intel Sata controller drivers ?

Have you installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology ?

 

[gregrocker]

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.

 

[whs]

If you want to add the unallocated space to the Linux partition, it does not really matter a lot where the unallocated space is. Partition Wizard can add it from any area to any partition. However, If it is to the right of your C partition, PW has to shove less data arouns and it would be faster.

Make sure you make images of all those partitions before you venture into those manipulations. Mistakes happen and you certainly don't want to lose your stuff.

As far as restoring the image to the SSD goes, for this you need not shrink C (at least when you use Macrium). You have only 45GB of data on C and that should fit on the SSD. The total size of the originaating partition is irrelevant.

 

[Tinsby]

OK

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

 

[gregrocker]

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.

 

[townsbg]

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.

As I stated disk management is very limited. If there are "unmovable" files then it won't shrink the disk past them even if you have the room. easus will restart the system and move the files giving you much more flexibility. The downside is that it isn't as easy to use.

 

[Tinsby]

That board is wee bit old, does it have Intel 6.0 GBs sata ports ?

Motherboards - RAMPAGE EXTREME - ASUS

Is the ssd connected to the 1st Intel 6.0 GBps sata port? (Check physically and check in the bios)

Did you install the latest Intel Sata controller drivers ?

Have you installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology ?

Hi!
The SSD is connected to the 1st of 6 SATA ports not the 2 that are marked "speeding"
Drivers installed afaik yes
Intel rapid Storage Technology not so sure about that one :/

 

[Tinsby]

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,

I was able to shrink the C drive down to 100GB, with the great PW, which will be more than enough over provisioning for it. I only intend to add 1 other program to it and I am done.

The fly in in the ointment so to speak is space left over, I wanted to be able to use that to make the Linux partition and the swap file larger.The unallocated space is right next to the Linux partition. But using PW and having that space unallocated I couldn't make the Linux partition larger or the swap. So I formatted it as EXT4 and named it 'extra space' ( how original). I thought that maybe if it was formatted like the other 2 Linux partitions I could steal some of it's space. But formatting it didn't help either.

Also tried to use Gparted, the Linux partition editor and that didn't show me ANY Linux partitions! Yet Linux opens and runs fine.I don't expect you to field Linux questions, but just wanted to let you know where I am in the process.
In the screen shot the 93.65GB partition is the unallocated space that I formatted in an effort to make it available to the 26.82 partition..didn't work tho'.

Thank you as always!

 

[gregrocker]

What happened when you tried Partition Wizard Extend function as I suggested and provided a video how-to? This would borrow as much space from C as you want for the Linux partition. As I stated you might need to issue the partition a letter temporarily to get it to run. So what happened when you tried this which I suggested twice?

If you only used the Resize function to shrink C, then what happened when you right clicked on the Linux partition to Resize it to the left? Did you try issuing it a letter to get it to work?

It isn't helpful when you don't report back the exact problem with getting PW to work. How can we advise you?

 

[townsbg]

Third party tools are the only way to get the size that you want. Again disk management is limited.

 

[Tinsby]

Got it sorted but only after a re-install

What happened when you tried Partition Wizard Extend function as I suggested and provided a video how-to? This would borrow as much space from C as you want for the Linux partition. As I stated you might need to issue the partition a letter temporarily to get it to run. So what happened when you tried this which I suggested twice?

If you only used the Resize function to shrink C, then what happened when you right clicked on the Linux partition to Resize it to the left? Did you try issuing it a letter to get it to work?

It isn't helpful when you don't report back the exact problem with getting PW to work. How can we advise you?

gregrocker,

I was able to shrink the C partition using Partition Wizard with no trouble, nice program!

But, I was unable to shrink, move, extend, expand, stretch or do anything with my Linux partitions! Grrr.

Realizing that this is a 7 forum I won't go into detail about why, but I will say that the Linux partition editor, Gparted, couldn't see the Linux partitions at all! Not good!

The report on the size of the partitions was wrong as well, I got that by using a Linux "terminal", very much like a CMD prompt in Windows. It was decided after a discussion in a Linux forum to simply remove and re-install that OS.

That's what I did and everything is fine now, since I had nothing of any value on the Linux system it wasn't a problem to re-install it and start over.Took only about 20 minutes to do it, now all the partitions are the size I wanted plus I have some leftover space on the SSD.

That PW program is a gem I'll keep that on hand from now on!

So thanks to everyone who contributed and gave their valued opinions on the problem initially.

Regards,

J T

 

[gregrocker]

Once again you don't respond to whether you attempted to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help. I've now asked you repeatedly after providing you with this video to show how it is done.

I've also repeatedly asked if you tried assigning a drive letter to the Linux partition to do this operation, which again you have not replied. Is there some reason you cannot explain what you did? Saying it failed is not adequate when using a tool we've provided here tens of thousands of times to successfully complete operations like this. It does not fail if done correctly.

We need feedback to know what to advise you to do next, not to just give up and not let us help you do it correctly.