Windows 7 Drive Partition Help Needed

Hopefully someone knowledgeable can enlighten me on this. I only get involved in things like this every couple of years so it’s hard to remember,

I just took delivery a new i7 Dell XPS laptop with a 1 tb drive and Windows 7. I went to shrink the drive to create a separate partition as a data drive, like I've done many times before.

The OS and existing program files consumed only 44 gigs and I thought I’d give it a generous 300 gigs for additional programs and overhead. But the system would only allow me to shrink it to a minimum of 470 gigs.

I have an i7 desktop running Vista that I did not have this problem with.

Any idea why it would need this bloated a drive size would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Pinto wrote in post #14485352
Hopefully someone knowledgeable can enlighten me on this. I only get involved in things like this every couple of years so it’s hard to remember,

I just took delivery a new i7 Dell XPS laptop with a 1 tb drive and Windows 7. I went to shrink the drive to create a separate partition as a data drive, like I've done many times before.

The OS and existing program files consumed only 44 gigs and I thought I’d give it a generous 300 gigs for additional programs and overhead. But the system would only allow me to shrink it to a minimum of 470 gigs.

I have an i7 desktop running Vista that I did not have this problem with.

Any idea why it would need this bloated a drive size would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

What is shown as the "size available to shrink"?
When shrinking you enter the amount you want to shrink by, not the target size you are aiming for.

Dave,
Thank for the response. I understand that. I shrunk it to the minimal size allowed by the system. 469 gigs. To confirm that, I went back in and it showed the amount allowed amount to shrink now as 0.

Win7 doesnt let you cut the main drive into anything other than (roughly) 50/50...

i got that from a Microsoft employee...

i have the same issue with my hard drive of 500gb...

If you are using the Windows 7 utilities, you might want to try a commercial product like Acronis Disk Director. I've used it, and it doesn't seem to have any reservations about what size the disk should be, if I remember correctly.

Ltdave wrote in post #14485740
Win7 doesnt let you cut the main drive into anything other than (roughly) 50/50...

i got that from a Microsoft employee...

i have the same issue with my hard drive of 500gb...

Thank you Dave. That's sure what it looks like.
Windows 7 so far looks more like frustration than any improvement.

Hen3Ry wrote in post #14485805
If you are using the Windows 7 utilities, you might want to try a commercial product like Acronis Disk Director. I've used it, and it doesn't seem to have any reservations about what size the disk should be, if I remember correctly.

Thanks Henry. I have an older copy of Partition Magic. I might give that a try.

First thing I did when I got an XPS laptop was wipe the hard drive and do a fresh install of Win 7, not a system recovery. During the install you can partition the hard drive any way you like. My laptop wasn't to bogged down with Dell crap, but there was some, I just reloaded what I actually needed.

-dave-m- wrote in post #14486253
First thing I did when I got an XPS laptop was wipe the hard drive and do a fresh install of Win 7, not a system recovery. During the install you can partition the hard drive any way you like. My laptop wasn't to bogged down with Dell crap, but there was some, I just reloaded what I actually needed.

That certainly would be the best procedure.

I was surprised by how little Dell bloat-ware was on the system.

Yes you cannot shrink a drive with an OS installed. Windows wont let you do it. If you want to drink the partition with an OS installed on the disk you must use a third party software like partition magic.

rcfury wrote in post #14489348
Yes you cannot shrink a drive with an OS installed. Windows wont let you do it. If you want to drink the partition with an OS installed on the disk you must use a third party software like partition magic.

This can't be correct. I shrunk it by 50%.

The 50% is a "Safety" put in by microsoft to prevent bonking the MFT (which is often around the mid point of the disk). More advanced partition software is sophisticated enough to work around this, but that's like comparing notepad to a full wordprocessor.

I use a freeware open source boot CD called Gparted (http://gparted.sourcef​orge.net/) to get around this problem at work. But at the same time with these partitions being on the same physical disk, a seperate data partition really offers no additional protection. I'd probably just put it back to one big partition.

tkbslc wrote in post #14493629
The 50% is a "Safety" put in by microsoft to prevent bonking the MFT (which is often around the mid point of the disk). More advanced partition software is sophisticated enough to work around this, but that's like comparing notepad to a full wordprocessor.

I use a freeware open source boot CD called Gparted (http://gparted.sourcef​orge.net/) to get around this problem at work. But at the same time with these partitions being on the same physical disk, a seperate data partition really offers no additional protection. I'd probably just put it back to one big partition.

Thank you for your response. I've always partitioned.

Too many times the OS has failed for one reason or another, and although I try to backup, best intentions always lose to reality, and data on a separate partition has saved me too many times to recall.

The data is still there, regardless of partition. But it's a matter of taste, for sure.

one advice,
before you start playing around with partitions,
make sure you Backup everything on third-party device.