Starting with Vista and 7, the Windows operating system has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of the primary partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and do not have enough additional disks. By compressing the volume, you free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other required partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using graphical interface Windows, and for more advanced users, we will also describe the method using command line.
Before starting, make sure you have done backup all important data.
Shrink a volume or partition using the Disk Management tool
If you have Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "disk management" in the search box and press Enter. If you are Windows user 8.x, click right click mouse in the lower left corner of the screen (or press the key combination Win + X) and select "Disk Management".
Disk Management is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer ( hard drives, USB sticks, CD / DVD, etc.)
Select the primary partition you want to shrink, right-click on it and select Shrink.
As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining the available compression space.
Specify the amount of space you would like to reclaim and click Compress. Remember the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB equals 1024 MB.
You can use the freed (or unallocated) space in this way to create a new partition.
Shrink a volume or partition using the command line
To open a command prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type cmd, right-click cmd.exe in the search results, and select Run as administrator. In Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of your screen and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Enter diskpart and press Enter.
V DISKPART line enter list volume... This command will list all drives on the computer.
Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, enter select volume 1 and press Enter.
Enter shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.
Now you have two options: first, you can simply type shrink, and then Windows will shrink all the available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume for compression. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired = size_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired = 2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value indicated in the line “ Maximum amount reused bytes ". Thus, with this command, you can specify the exact amount of space to compress.
If you do everything correctly, then after the completion of the operation you will see the message:
DiskPart has successfully shrunk the volume by: num_in_megabytes
That's all! To exit DISKPART properly, type exit and press Enter.
Things to consider:
- When trying to shrink the main section or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the non-relocatable files area (for example, shadow copy, hibernation, paging files, etc.) followed by the "second" white space, you can only shrink the partition to the end of the second white space, since there are non-relocatable files in the middle.
- If a large number of bad clusters are found, compression will fail.
- You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or NTFS partitions.
Have a great day!
Disk Management can shrink a hard disk volume to create a new partition.
Windows 7 includes several tools for managing computer configuration and various aspects operating system... Sometimes it is necessary to reduce the size of a volume — the allocated space on a hard drive — in order to free up space to create another partition. Until recently, this would have had to use third-party utilities, but with the advent of the built-in Windows 7 "Disk Management" tool, the need to install special software has disappeared.
Volume Compression
First, you need to run the Disk Management tool with administrator rights. Open the Start menu, type “diskmgmt.msc” in the search bar without quotes, right-click on the “diskmgmt” link in the search results and select the “Run as Administrator” option from context menu(fig. A).
Figure A. Run Disk Management as an administrator.
The window shown in Fig. B.
Figure B. The Disk Management tool window.
As you can see, my computer has a data recovery partition, a system partition and a Data partition. It's better not to touch the system partition, so let's compress the "Data (D :)" section as an example.
Right-click on the partition you want to shrink and select the Shrink Volume option (Figure C).
Figure C. From the context menu, select the Shrink Volume option.
The system will take a few seconds to analyze the disk, the results of which will display the dialog box shown in Fig. D.
Figure D. Based on the analysis results, a dialog box is displayed with general information about volume.
In this window, you can change the value only in the field "Size of shrinkable space (MB)" (Enter the Amount of Space to Shrink in MB). As an example, let's shrink volume "D:" by 5000 MB (5 GB), as shown in Fig. E. When ready, click the Compress button.
Figure E. Shrink the 5000 MB volume.
When the operation is completed, a new one will appear on the hard disk. distributed space(fig. F). Its real size will be slightly less than it was indicated during compression, since a small part of this space will be reserved for the file Windows systems.
Figure F. New unallocated space.
Using unallocated space
Now you need to create a partition on the unallocated space that the operating system can use. It is not difficult at all, but it is done in several stages, so I will talk about creating a new volume in the next article.
Editing partitions and volumes helps out with thoughtless disk partitioning at the beginning Windows installations... Defects made during the installation are easily corrected.
Why do I need to change hard disk partitions
Due to the large number of programs and games taking up almost all free space, Windows starts to slow down, and defragmentation of the C partition is performed with errors.
The main reason for changing partitions hard disk is the lack of space on the system partition C.
At this time, partition D is empty up to several hundred gigabytes, but moving some files to partition D forces many third-party applications to be reconfigured. In this case, it is easier to expand the C drive at the expense of D.
How to expand the C drive
Expanding drive C is possible using both Windows tools, and with the help of third-party programs.
Expanding the C drive directly in Windows 7
If you want to expand your drive with standard tools Windows, then do the following:
- By clicking Win buttons+ R, bring up the "Run" window. Enter the command "diskmgmt.msc" and click "OK". The "diskmgmt.msc" command will call the "Disk Management" utility
- Select partition D and in the context menu of the volume click on "Delete volume". Don't rush to edit hidden discs without a volume name, since deleting a partition will destroy all valuable files stored on it. The necessary information should be copied to another disk in advance or removable media.You cannot remove the C drive on which the system itself is installed. Destroying drive D leaves unallocated space in its place.
Select the volume and delete it - Select drive C and in the context menu give the command "Expand volume".
- Assign the number of megabytes that will fill up the C drive. It will not be possible to exceed the maximum value, since physical medium limited. Click Next.
This amount will decrease the size of the previously obtained unallocated area. - The C drive will be enlarged. The size of the D drive will be reduced by the megabytes allocated to the C drive. Click on the free area of the drive and give the "Create a simple volume" command. When you recreate volume D, this partition will be automatically formatted (applies quick format by means of Windows).
Click on the remaining unallocated area and click on "Create Simple Volume" in the context menu
There is now enough room in C for normal Windows work and your programs.
If you want, you can use third-party applications, for example, Acronis Disk Director or Partition Manager. But it should be remembered that in the hands of inexperienced users, alternative programs often become not a "magic wand", but a means of destroying user files, and only in a computer service center can you recover lost data.
Video: Extend a Volume Using Windows 7 Tools
Expanding drive C when reinstalling Windows 7
When installing Windows, you will not pass by the stage of changing partitions on a disk. During the reinstallation process, the program will ask which partition to install the system into, and will offer to redistribute the hard disk space.
There are two types of Windows installations: update and full installation. The update is done over the existing system, saves everything installed programs but resets the system parameters. Full install - formatted install system partition, or installation on another partition of the hard disk. If you want to change partitions of the hard disk, then you need to choose the second type of installation.
If you really need a clean install of Windows, do the following:
- Insert the installation DVD or USB stick and restart your PC.
- Press the Del, F2, or Esc key during system startup to open the BIOS window (the choice of key depends on your computer manufacturer). In the window that opens, use the arrows to select "Boot".
In the window that opens, use the arrows to select "Boot" - Next, use the arrows to open the " Boot Device Priority "and in the list, select that boot device from which you need to boot the system. Close BIOS and save changes.
In the list, select the boot device from which you need to boot the system - Wait for the installer to load into RAM PC.
- Select type reinstall Windows.
Please select full installation Windows 7 - For example, one disk and one partition are taken. Select the drive and click "Drive Setup". All your files must be copied in advance to other drives.
Select the drive and click "Drive Setup" - Additional links will appear - click the "Remove" link. A warning about data transfer will appear, click "OK" and delete the section. Do the same with adjacent sections (D, E, etc.), if any.
Click "OK" if your personal files have been copied to other media - After deleting the existing partitions, you will have an unpartitioned (unformatted) disk zone, which is full size hard drive. To create new sections, click the "Create" link.
Windows 7 setup will help you create new logical drives - Specify the size of partition C, similarly create partition D. Go to partition C and format it. Fast formatting (clearing the disc's TOC) will be applied.
The installer requires formatting partition C
After formatting, the reinstallation of Windows will continue. Section C changed successfully.
Video: Resize Partitions While Reinstalling Windows 7
Why can't I expand a volume in Windows 7
The situation when the "Expand volume" option is inactive is possible. For example, the expansion of the same C drive is taken.
The situation when the "Expand volume" option is inactive is possible - a spanned volume was created as D, which includes, for example, disks D and E. Transfer the files from these partitions to other media. Delete this spanned volume;
- you forgot to delete all subsequent volumes, including drive D. Expanding the previous volume only works when you delete the next one.
How to delete a volume
Only an unallocated partition can be added to the disk, which appears after deleting a volume.
Removing a volume in Windows 7
To delete a volume:
You will have free space the size of this volume, which can now be attached to another partition.
Why can't I delete a partition or volume
In some cases, removal can be difficult.
The reasons are as follows:
How to remove the swap file
To make the volume deletion available, do the following to remove the Windows paging file:
- Go to the "Control Panel" through the "Start" menu.
Through the "Start" menu go to "Control Panel" - Go to the "System" section.
Go to the "System" section - Go to " Extra options systems ".
Click on "Advanced system settings" - In the System Properties window, go to the Advanced tab and click on the Options button in the performance settings.
Click this button - In the performance parameters window, select the "Advanced" section and click on "Change".
Select the "Advanced" section and click on "Change" - In the virtual memory settings window, uncheck the auto-select paging file size option and check the box next to "No paging file". Click on the "Set" button.
Uncheck the auto swap file size option and check the box next to "No swap file" - Click Yes when prompted to clear the paging file.
Answer yes to the request to clear the paging file - Close all windows by clicking "OK" and restart your computer.
Return to Disk Management and try to delete the volume again. Check if connected this volume with the adjacent volume in the same section.
How to shrink a volume
You can also expand the disk by compressing it. The compression will provide free space that can be used to create a new partition or volume.
The specifics of volume compression in Windows 7 are as follows:
- compression works only for the main and additional sections, as well as in file system NTFS. If the partition or volume is formatted in FAT32, transfer the data from it and reformat (or convert) it to NTFS. To do this, open the context menu of the disk and click "Format";
- if there are many bad sectors in the partition or volume, it will not be able to shrink;
- paging file, hibernation files, recovery point data present additional difficulties for compressing partitions and volumes. Compression will not go further than the second area of free space, counting from the beginning of the volume.
Shrinking a volume using Disk Management
If you want to shrink a volume using standard Windows tools, then:
Shrinking a volume using the command line
If the volume shrink option in Disk Management is no longer available, use the command Windows string... It can bypass the inactivity of some actions closed by the Windows graphical shell. The instruction is universal for Windows 7 / 8.x / 10.
- Find the "Command Prompt" application through the search in "Start" and run it with administrator rights. For tasks beyond use application programs, on Windows, administrator privileges are often required.
Run the "Command Prompt" application as an administrator This command displays a list of disks, partitions and volumes Command line reports the maximum available volume space for compression - Enter the "shrink desired = (number in megabytes)" that you want to compress. The "shrink" command is entered with parameters, and if they are missing, all available content will be compressed.
The "desired" attribute is a variable corresponding to a value in megabytes
When the volume has been shrunk, the command line will display a message stating that the volume has shrunk by the specified megabytes successfully. Using the Disk Management application, make sure that there is a free area in which you can create new volume.
Video: Shrinking a Volume Using the Command Line
Expand, shrink, delete, add new partitions and volumes using the standard Windows utilities- it's not difficult. The main thing is not to lose valuable data that you have collected and created for more than one year.
Hello everyone today I want to tell you how shrink volume v Windows Server 2008 R2. Under squeeze Windows volumes means freeing up free space from the local disk and turning it into unallocated space. This may be required when, for example, you want to make from one local disk, two one for the system and the second for data, it is very important when you want to reinstall Windows while preserving all your information, without having to transfer it to external media.
This method of compressing a local disk is suitable for absolutely any Windows versions from Windows 7 to Windows 10 to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2014 R2. To solve our problem, the Disk Management snap-in will help us. Open start-Administration-Disk Management.
Go to the Disk Management snap-in. We see a list of local disks that you have in your operating system ..
An even easier way to open the Disk Management snap-in is to press Win + R and type diskmgmt.msc.
I have a G drive with 40GB files
Go to the snap and right click on the G disk we want to shrink. We choose to shrink the volume.
We see the allowable size of the compressible space, I want to compress by 20 GB.
Compression will begin, and we see an unallocated space that we can use to create a new disk or expand another.
We check the G disk and see that all the files are alive and the disk size is 20 GB less. I want to note that it will not work like this with the system drive C: \, in view of the specifics of the operating system, but you can use additional utilities.
This is how easy it is to shrink a volume in Windows Server 2008 R2.
Most users are accustomed to using two partitions on one hard drive, usually a drive called C and D. Many have become interested in the question of how to resize a disk in Windows 10 using the built-in system tools installing Windows or after) and third-party free software.
Use the Disk Management utility
- Open the utility by right-clicking on the "Start" menu, select "Disk Management".
- In the search bar of the "Start" menu, type "Control Panel", open it.
Select "System and Security".
In the window that opens, in the "Administration" item, click on the "Create and format a hard disk" sub-item.
Shrink a volume, free up space to create a new partition in Windows 10
In order to create a new volume in the utility, you first need to take free space somewhere for this, it can be obtained by compressing the space on an existing volume. In Windows operating system, no more than 4 partitions can exist on one physical HDD, including system partitions (for example, the Recovery Partition). There are usually two local drives, C and D.
To create the third volume, you need to right-click on the partition with more free space, in our case it is disk D. An explorer window will appear, click on the item "Shrink volume" to free up free space, change it to unallocated space.
Section D for creating a new volume.
After that, the message “The volume is being polled to determine the available space for compression. Wait…". The process can last from a few seconds to several tens of minutes.
When the system finishes polling the volume, a window will appear, in the "Compressed volume size" column, you need to specify how much space must be separated from the donor disk to create free space for now. You will not be able to allocate more space for the new partition than specified. In the example in the screenshot, the limit is 78880 MB, a bit more than 77GB.
You can specify any other number less than the above, for example, by setting the value to 51200 MB, allocate exactly 50 gigabytes for the new volume. After selecting the "Compress" item, no result will be noticeable for some time. To check if the compression process is in progress, you need to hover the cursor over the utility window, a spinning blue circle should appear. When a black stripe with unallocated space appears at the bottom of the window, this will indicate that compression has occurred.
This freed up space for creating a new volume on the HDD in Windows 10. Now the unallocated space must be turned into a full-fledged hard disk partition.
- Create a hard disk partition from unallocated space
It is necessary to right-click on the area with the inscription "Not allocated", select the item "Create simple volume".
The "Simple Volume Wizard" will open, click "Next", in the next window you will need to specify the size of the new volume. You can leave the value unchanged or, if you want to create two sections or more, specify a value less. Click "Next".
After that, select the Latin letter, which will denote the disk, for example, F. Select the letter, click "Next".
You will then be able to format the new section as needed.
Continue by clicking "Finish".
After a few seconds or minutes, the partition is formatted and the new hard partition Windows disk 10 will be created. When choosing the amount of memory that you want to allocate for the formation of a new one, you must take into account that a small amount of compressed space will be taken by Windows for system needs.
So when choosing 50 GB of memory, we got a volume of 49.9 GB.
Partitioning when installing Windows 10
When installing Windows 10 on a computer from a flash drive or disk, you can divide disks into volumes. For those who reinstall the operating system, keep in mind that this will delete data from the system partition.
During the installation of Windows, after entering (or skipping entering) the activation key, select the item " Custom installation", After which it will be possible to select a partition for installation, tools for configuring partitions are available.
In our case, drive C is partition 4.
To make two partitions from one HDD, you need to use the "Delete" button to convert the partition into "Unallocated disk space" (point 4).
Then select an unoccupied space, click the "Create" button, set the size of the future "Disk C". After its creation, there will be free unallocated space, which will need to be redone in the same way into the second disk partition.
After creating the second partition, it is recommended to select it, click "Format" (otherwise, it may not appear in Explorer after installing Windows 10 and it will have to be formatted and assigned a letter through "Disk Management"). Then select the volume that was created first, click the "Next" button to continue installing the operating system on the C drive.
Programs for partitioning disks into partitions
In addition to the built-in Windows tools, there are many programs for working with partitions on disks. Some of the best free software are Aomei Partition Assistant Free and Minitool Partition Wizard Free.
First you need to download the Aomei Partition Assistant program from the official website, install it on your PC and run it. The application has Russian language, we do not select system disk, in our case it is "E".
Right-click on it, click "Resize Partition".
The selected amount of memory will appear, in our case - 15 GB.
Right click on the system local disk C, from the context menu select "Resize Partition".
Again, drag the slider to the right to the desired size, or set the required space for expansion in the "Unallocated space after" field. Warnings will appear to make a Windows 10 system recovery image or a backup copy by third-party means, press "Ok". To save the changes, click "Apply" in the upper left corner.
A message will appear that there will be several reboots, during which drive C will merge with unallocated space, select "Go". A message will appear that the program will work in PreOs mode, click "Yes".
Windows 10 will restart.
On first boot, AOMEI Partition Assistant PreOS Mode will start.
The process of completing the task will begin.