Shrinking a Volume - GParted or MiniTools Partition Wizard

[allanc]

When attempting to shrink a Windows volume, I am encountering the usual 'unmovable files' issue.
I have read some people have used GParted with success in this scenario but others have had problems.
Still others were successful with 'MiniTools Partition Wizard'.
All suggestions are appreciated.

 

[SilverLeaf]

It sounds like you are trying to resize a volume that is still in use. You need to perform this operation outside of the O/S and/or on an unmounted partition. Gparted works great for this, and is available on just about any live linux CD. Of course backups, or an image, are a good idea when performing such operations.....just in case. Be careful, it is a powerful tool.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I think I've used AOMEI Partition Assistant (free for personal and commercial use) to do that, and just read that . .

Resizing partition means to change the size of a partition as you like, either extend it or shrink it. But when you shrink a partition, you can at most shrink it to the size of its used space so that you can use the partitions with more flexibility

It does it in a DOS task during reboot.

 

[jbartlett323]

have you tried just slaving it to another windows box and using disk managment to shrink it? Most definitely will have issues trying to resize the C: of the currently booted OS, but slaved to another it should work fine. Think I have shrunk one once, have definitely expanded more than a couple C: partitions this way....

 

[allanc]

It sounds like you are trying to resize a volume that is still in use. You need to perform this operation outside of the O/S and/or on an unmounted partition. Gparted works great for this, and is available on just about any live linux CD. Of course backups, or an image, are a good idea when performing such operations.....just in case. Be careful, it is a powerful tool.

I try to image every client's computer when it is in shop and even when I am onsite (time permitting or if I think the risk factor is high).

 

[allanc]

I think I've used AOMEI Partition Assistant (free for personal and commercial use) to do that, and just read that . .
It does it in a DOS task during reboot.

I assume then that the 'unmovable files' are considered part of the 'used space' and that they cannot be moved?

 

[Larry Sabo]

I assume then that the 'unmovable files' are considered part of the 'used space' and that they cannot be moved?

Not to be a smart a$$, but where else would they be but within the used space? If you have a 250GB drive and are not using anything beyond 200GB, you should be able to shrink the drive to 200GB without running into any such errors, I would think. Perhaps the message relates to using, say, 150GB, followed by slack space up to 230GB then have files at 230-250GB. In that case, an off-line defrag should solve the problem. Let me know if I'm out to lunch on this.