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How to resize a Windows Vista partition

  • Ravva Vamsi
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  • Resize the Windows partition

    A Windows partition should be at least 20 Gb (recommended 30 Gb for Vista/Windows 7), and an Ubuntu partition at least 10 Gb (recommended 20 Gb). Obviously, if you have plenty of disk space, make the partition for whichever will be your favored operating system larger.

    Windows XP

    If using Windows XP (or other older Windows OS), you can use the GParted partition manager to shrink the Windows partition and thereby leave free space on the hard drive for the Ubuntu partition.


    manage and shrink your drive partitions easily in Windows VistaUnfortunately, resizing your Windows Vista partition isn’t particularly easy. That fact is regardless of the presence of Vista’s drive management tool, the piece of Windows functionality that should make it easy to shrink or extend your drive partitions.
    So, while I’ve been preparing to install Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope I’ve had to learn how to get around this problem. I thought I’d share the process with you and add some value to this forum post by testing the process and simplifying it with screenshots and a step by step guide.
    The problem with Windows Vista drive management
    Does this screen look familiar? The total available shrink space on your C: drive is zero or very low:
    no available shrink space windows vista
    The reason why you can’t just shrink a Windows Vista partition is largely due to the existence of files that can’t be moved through conventional means (or even standard defragmentation) such as the Master File Table, Pagefiles and Hibernation data. To actually make some free space available to the drive management tool, you’ve got to get your sleeves rolled up.
    How to shrink your Windows Vista Partition
    1) Disable hibernation
    To disable hibernation, open up a command prompt window as administrator and key in the following command:
    powercfg -h off
    use command prompt to turn hibernate off in Windows
    2) Disable system restore
    Right click on your My Computer icon and click properties. Click the “System Protection” tab and uncheck the drive you want to
    disable hibernation for, and confirm your choice.
    turn system restore off in windows
    3) Disable the pagefile
    In the same system properties dialogue, go to the
    Advanced tab and click the Performance button.  Under Advanced, click “Change” and select “No Paging File”
    disable paging file in Windows
    4) Disable the kernel memory dump
    Once again, return to the Advanced System Settings dialogue and go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under “Startup and Recovery”. Under “System Failure”, change the drop-down menu to (none).
    disable kernel memory dump in Windows
    5) Clean your disk
    Now, Run the disk cleanup wizard and be sure to delete all of your previous restore points and hibernation files.
    delete all previous restore points
    7) Download and install the 30-day free trial of PerfectDisk 10 Professional
    This is the software I used to complete the defragmentation process and it worked. While there are a number of other advanced partitioning tools out there, I cannot recommend any until I’ve tried them. If you have a recomendation, please leave your comments below. I downloaded the free trial for the professional version.
    8) Start the defragmentation process
    In the Perfectdisk interface, select your drive and run a SMARTPlacement defragmentation – click the image to enlarge. The SMARTplacement defrag option is the radio button in the top left hand corner. Click “Start” to get going – the whole process could take a while so be prepared to wait an hour or so.
    9) Nearly finished
    Finally, do a consolidate free space defrag. This will further maximise your available free space and completes the process.
    consolidate-free-space
    When all of this is complete you’ll see results that look a little similar to this:
    finished
    10) Shrink your volume
    You should be ready to shrink your system volume, so, click “manage” with a right mouse button click on the My Computer icon:
    Manage your computer
    11) Manage your disk
    In the Computer Management Dialogue, double click “Disk Management” and right mouse click on your C: drive to begin the volume shrinking process. When you’re done, you’ll see a new, unallocated space like this:
    drive resized
    That’s it! Remember to return the settings you changed earlier on in the process back to their original values, and if you’re not sure about carrying out any of the instructions in this post you’d be well advised to back up a copy of your hard drive first.

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