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Can't shrink SSD - OS partition!

RRIP
By RRIP
in Programs, Apps and Websites
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Hello,

 

I have a 1TB Crucial SSD, a single partition with Windows 10 Pro, that I want to shrink, but utilities won't do it... any reasons why?

 

Windows Disk Management, won't allow me, DOH!... I mean, I can click Shrink, but it only allows me to take "2227MB" from the whole +930GB partition... why this limit?

 

I installed Partition Expert and Disk Genius, and tried to do it with those, and seemed promising, as they both graphically displayed the exact setup I wanted, how my partitions would look after, and when I saved it, both apps rebooted my system and had something going on in that "Dos/Terminal" environment before booting into Windows, making me believe that they're actually doing it, but to my surprise, none of them actually did anything! Windows started and the partition is still the same... NTFS, Primary, System, boot, page file, active... I want to reserve 100GB to install and learn Linux.

 

I've dabbled in partitions in the past, but was always straight forward, so never got more seriously into it... should I change it to Dynamic? (I'm reading about it now)... I also don't know about MBR and GPT... I remember something about GPT being better, and actually I just bought another 2TB SSD to backup my data, and first time I connected it, I was asked to choose, and I chose GPT , but don't remember a year ago, when I installed my OS on the 1TB being asked about this option...didn't even know about it then...

 

Which has something to do with not letting me shrink it? Is it the Dynamic vs Basic thing, or the MBR vs GPT that doesn't allow me to play with the partition freely?

 

Now I'm going to google for a tool that I can boot from, and hopefully shrink it that way, without having to erase anything... last resort I will format the whole SSD and start from scratch.

 

 

Also, would someone be so kind as to recommend some program to make a backup/snapshot/exact image of my system?

 

My pc is 10 years old, and I had a lot of problems with drivers in the past, upgrading from Win 7 to 10... then digging for old drivers as the latest cause issues... (for instance, my speakers still play sound after I plug in my headphones)

I've done plenty of clean OS installs, and then wasted 2 whole days tweaking my system to the way I like it... I want to save a backup/recovery/bootable option from that point (after I Installed a clean Windows + all my usual programs and OCD tweaks)... and SAVE to USB for recovery... so instead of doing another Clean install, I would do a Clean 'refresh'... for instance, having Office/Photoshop/Premiere etc, Chrome/Mozilla with all the bookmarks and shortcuts, my video players with their config.inis and stuff, all installed in one go... and that to be my 'Clean Install'.

 

After which I can install photoshop/premiere/architect/autocad, games etc.. and when I feel my system is cluttered (Program Data, AppData, leftovers and stuff), I just do a 'Clean Refresh'...  

 

If I have to reinstall Windows again, I wouldn't know where to begin... I always take a screenshot of my 'Programs and Features' installed, but I always forget something... have to manually save some *.ini files for some of the programs... and activations are always a nightmare...

 

 

Thank you for your attention.

Kind regards

 

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8 minutes ago, MQL said:

Windows Disk Management, won't allow me, DOH!... I mean, I can click Shrink, but it only allows me to take "2227MB" from the whole +930GB partition... why this limit?

WDM is a pretty, uh, "not smart" application, and can't/won't move existing data to shrink the partition. It can only go until it finds data.

 

11 minutes ago, MQL said:

last resort I will format the whole SSD and start from scratch.

This is what I would recommend if the those other tools really aren't working. It's been a long time since I've had to shrink a partition.

Main System (Byarlant): Ryzen 7 5800X | Asus B550-Creator ProArt | EK 240mm Basic AIO | 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-14 | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 RX 6600 | Samsung 990 PRO 2TB / Samsung 960 PRO 512GB / 4× Crucial MX500 2TB (RAID-0) | Corsair RM750X | Mellanox ConnectX-3 10G NIC | Inateck USB 3.0 Card | Hyte Y60 Case | Dell U3415W Monitor | Keychron K4 Brown (white backlight)

 

Laptop (Narrative): Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US | Ryzen 5 4500U | 16GB RAM (soldered) | Vega 6 Graphics | SKHynix P31 1TB NVMe SSD | Intel AX200 Wifi (all-around awesome machine)

 

Proxmox Server (Veda): Ryzen 7 3800XT | AsRock Rack X470D4U | Corsair H80i v2 | 64GB Micron DDR4 ECC 3200MT/s | 4x 10TB WD Whites / 4x 14TB Seagate Exos / 2× Samsung PM963a 960GB SSD | Seasonic Prime Fanless 500W | Intel X540-T2 10G NIC | LSI 9207-8i HBA | Fractal Design Node 804 Case (side panels swapped to show off drives) | VMs: TrueNAS Scale; Ubuntu Server (PiHole/PiVPN/NGINX?); Windows 10 Pro; Ubuntu Server (Apache/MySQL)


Media Center/Video Capture (Jesta Cannon): Ryzen 5 1600X | ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 | Noctua NH-L12S | 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-22 | EVGA GTX750Ti SC | UMIS NVMe SSD 256GB / Seagate 1.5TB HDD | Corsair CX450M | Viewcast Osprey 260e Video Capture | Mellanox ConnectX-2 10G NIC | LG UH12NS30 BD-ROM | Silverstone Sugo SG-11 Case | Sony XR65A80K

 

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Network:

Spoiler 
                           ┌─────────────── Office/Rack ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
Google Fiber Webpass ────── UniFi Security Gateway ─── UniFi Switch 8-60W ─┬─ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Veda (Proxmox Virtual Switch)
(500Mbps↑/500Mbps↓)                             UniFi CloudKey Gen2 (PoE) ─┴─ Veda (IPMI)           ╠═ Veda-NAS (HW Passthrough NIC)
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╩═ Narrative (Asus USB 2.5G NIC)
║ ┌────── Closet ──────┐   ┌─────────────── Bedroom ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
╚═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╤═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Byarlant
   (PoE)                 │                        ╠═ Narrative (Cable Matters USB-PD 2.5G Ethernet Dongle)
                         │                        ╚═ Jesta Cannon*
                         │ ┌─────────────── Media Center ──────────────────────────────────┐
Notes:                   └─ UniFi Switch 8 ─────────┬─ UniFi Access Point nanoHD (PoE)
═══ is Multi-Gigabit                                ├─ Sony Playstation 4 
─── is Gigabit                                      ├─ Pioneer VSX-S520
* = cable passed to Bedroom from Media Center       ├─ Sony XR65A80K (Google TV)
** = cable passed from Media Center to Bedroom      └─ Work Laptop** (Startech USB-PD Dock)

 

Retired/Other:

Spoiler

Laptop (Rozen-Zulu): Sony VAIO VPCF13WFX | Core i7-740QM | 8GB Patriot DDR3 | GT 425M | Samsung 850EVO 250GB SSD | Blu-ray Drive | Intel 7260 Wifi (lived a good life, retired with honor)

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TrueNAS Server (La Vie en Rose): Xeon E3-1241v3 | Supermicro X10SLL-F | Corsair H60 | 32GB Micron DDR3L ECC 1600MHz | 1x Kingston 16GB SSD / Crucial MX500 500GB

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36 minutes ago, tkitch said:

how much free space is on your C: Drive?

Oh, I'm not that dumb =)) 

My total SSD has 940GB available... about 200GB is the Windows and Program files, 200GB files/movies... 400GB+ FREE...

I only want 50-100 out of that...

 

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34 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

WDM is a pretty, uh, "not smart" application, and can't/won't move existing data to shrink the partition. It can only go until it finds data.

 

This is what I would recommend if the those other tools really aren't working. It's been a long time since I've had to shrink a partition.

Thank you very much!

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So, if you've been using the drive a while, you've probably got data spread waaaay out across the drive.  (Due to how SSDs work, they spread out data to prevent over taxing specific NAND cells.)

 

Bad idea:  You /could/ defrag the drive and then probably you'd be able to shrink the partition, but that'll be a LOT of wear and data reads/writes on the drive.  So...  that's your call.

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15 minutes ago, tkitch said:

So, if you've been using the drive a while, you've probably got data spread waaaay out across the drive.  (Due to how SSDs work, they spread out data to prevent over taxing specific NAND cells.)

 

Bad idea:  You /could/ defrag the drive and then probably you'd be able to shrink the partition, but that'll be a LOT of wear and data reads/writes on the drive.  So...  that's your call.

Thank you for the explanation on how SSDs work! I get it now...

Will format it and start from scratch.

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Can anyone tell me how to delete this thread? I got my answers, thank you very much, case closed...

I don't want to clutter the internet =)) but I can't find any 'delete/remove' button... 

 

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12 minutes ago, MQL said:

Can anyone tell me how to delete this thread? I got my answers, thank you very much, case closed...

I don't want to clutter the internet =)) but I can't find any 'delete/remove' button... 

 

That's a horrible thing to do. If someone else has the same problem, they'd search the net and find this thread, with the answer. No need to be selfish.

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26 minutes ago, MQL said:

Can anyone tell me how to delete this thread? I got my answers, thank you very much, case closed...

I don't want to clutter the internet =)) but I can't find any 'delete/remove' button... 

 

dont. forums are a good place to find information from one dude 3 years ago who had the same problem an d no one else had that problem ever again.

 

also only a mod can delete the thread...

I could use some help with this!

Spoiler

Need help updating a phone from w8.1 to w10 - Windows - Linus Tech Tips

please, pm me if you would like to contribute to my gpu bios database (includes overclocking bios, stock bios, and upgrades to gpus via modding)

Bios database

My beautiful, but not that powerful, main PC:

prior build:

Spoiler

 

 

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18 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

That's a horrible thing to do. If someone else has the same problem, they'd search the net and find this thread, with the answer. No need to be selfish.

That wasn't at all my intention! This is only my 2nd ever 'forum post', I don't exactly know how it all works...

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7 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

dont. forums are a good place to find information from one dude 3 years ago who had the same problem an d no one else had that problem ever again.

 

also only a mod can delete the thread...

Thank you for the clarification! I appreciate the lessons.

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I had this problem and what worked was to use SmartDefrag and defrag/optimise/prioritize it and then WITHOUT restarting the pc shrink it with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

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Yup, been using minitool for years and it always worked flawlessly. 

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<-- Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites -->

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