Shrinking Windows volume

Hi there,

I currently have a C: (Windows Vista) drive with about 100 Gb total space,
while not even 20 Gb is being used. I want to shrink it to about 30-35 Gb
(just to be on the safe side) so I can make a backup of my Windows drive more
easily. Disk management however only lets me shrink it with about 40 Gb,
leaving a 60 Gb C: drive. Hmmm. Now I've already done some searching and
found out that this is because Windows seems to bump into unmovable files at
that point. So, I moved the pagefile to another drive and deleted all shadow
copies (system restore points) as suggested in those sources. Still, no
improvement. So I'm quite at a loss now.

Any working ideas, suggestions, or questions regarding more info about my
system are greatly appreciated! In advance, thanks for your time.

A new problem arose. I decided to shrink my 100 Gb C: drive by 40 Gb so that
I could already make a start with a new Programs drive, and I planned to
extend that one later when my first (see above) problem would hopefully be
solved. As I tried to make a new drive out of 40 Gb unallocated disk space
though, I got the following error:

There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation.

But I don't get it... I'm just allocating space to a new disk, am I not?
Someone please explain this and provide a solution. Thanks in advance (again).

"Robin Klaassen" wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I currently have a C: (Windows Vista) drive with about 100 Gb total space,
> while not even 20 Gb is being used. I want to shrink it to about 30-35 Gb
> (just to be on the safe side) so I can make a backup of my Windows drive more
> easily. Disk management however only lets me shrink it with about 40 Gb,
> leaving a 60 Gb C: drive. Hmmm. Now I've already done some searching and
> found out that this is because Windows seems to bump into unmovable files at
> that point. So, I moved the pagefile to another drive and deleted all shadow
> copies (system restore points) as suggested in those sources. Still, no
> improvement. So I'm quite at a loss now.
>
> Any working ideas, suggestions, or questions regarding more info about my
> system are greatly appreciated! In advance, thanks for your time.

Robin,
Your before and after the attempted 'shrink' is still due to Windows
unmovable files. The only safe way around it in lieu of a complete
reinstall is to use a compatible Vista third party application(e.g.
Acronis Disk Director) which can facilitate your 'shrink' requirements.

...winston
MS-MVP Windows Live Mail

"Robin Klaassen" <Robin Klaassen@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:3670F0AB-2553-4D1D-8187-9E73EAD7E35B@microsoft.com...
> Hi there,
>
> I currently have a C: (Windows Vista) drive with about 100 Gb total
> space,
> while not even 20 Gb is being used. I want to shrink it to about 30-35
> Gb
> (just to be on the safe side) so I can make a backup of my Windows
> drive more
> easily. Disk management however only lets me shrink it with about 40
> Gb,
> leaving a 60 Gb C: drive. Hmmm. Now I've already done some searching
> and
> found out that this is because Windows seems to bump into unmovable
> files at
> that point. So, I moved the pagefile to another drive and deleted all
> shadow
> copies (system restore points) as suggested in those sources. Still,
> no
> improvement. So I'm quite at a loss now.
>
> Any working ideas, suggestions, or questions regarding more info about
> my
> system are greatly appreciated! In advance, thanks for your time.

Winston,

Just one more question before I try that. Will Acronis Disk Director move
the files ´blocking´ the shrinking or will they overwrite it? ´Cause I
already tried the boot-cd of GParted, but I don´t think that if I shrink my
C: drive with that those files will last... But if you can ascertain me that
the Acronis program is safe, I´d try that immediatly. Oh and the second
problem of not being able to allocate available space has been solved (thanks
to that boot-cd of GParted; it came to me that I couldn´t create more than
four primary partitions on a disk, so I made an extended bigger one and
divided that in two volumes).

Anyway, thanks for your time to reply.

Robin

"...winston" wrote:

> Robin,
> Your before and after the attempted 'shrink' is still due to Windows
> unmovable files. The only safe way around it in lieu of a complete
> reinstall is to use a compatible Vista third party application(e.g.
> Acronis Disk Director) which can facilitate your 'shrink' requirements.
>
> ...winston
> MS-MVP Windows Live Mail
>
> "Robin Klaassen" <Robin Klaassen@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:3670F0AB-2553-4D1D-8187-9E73EAD7E35B@microsoft.com...
> > Hi there,
> >
> > I currently have a C: (Windows Vista) drive with about 100 Gb total
> > space,
> > while not even 20 Gb is being used. I want to shrink it to about 30-35
> > Gb
> > (just to be on the safe side) so I can make a backup of my Windows
> > drive more
> > easily. Disk management however only lets me shrink it with about 40
> > Gb,
> > leaving a 60 Gb C: drive. Hmmm. Now I've already done some searching
> > and
> > found out that this is because Windows seems to bump into unmovable
> > files at
> > that point. So, I moved the pagefile to another drive and deleted all
> > shadow
> > copies (system restore points) as suggested in those sources. Still,
> > no
> > improvement. So I'm quite at a loss now.
> >
> > Any working ideas, suggestions, or questions regarding more info about
> > my
> > system are greatly appreciated! In advance, thanks for your time.
>
>