Shrinking down the C drive further?

[WoodPeckr]

OK the new PC has a 1 TB drive.
Created a ~450GB partition for Ubuntu from C Drive.
Left ~500GB for Win7 on the C drive.

Now I want it to shrink C down to 100GB leaving ~400 for a storage partition, which will probably become the say the D drive. When attempting to 'shrink' C drive Windows says I can only shrink C down another 15GB! Tried defragging C to push everything forward but when trying to shrink C again, I get the same warning saying C can only shrink down another 15GB to avoid damaging some 'unmovable' files!

WTF!
Is Win 7 scattered all over that 500GB C drive? And why can't I partition C drive down to ~100GB, leaving 400GB for a new storage partition? I don't want to partition C with Linux and take the chance of farking up Win 7, which BTW runs great.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I have Seagate Disc Wizard but am worried Win 7 or the GRUB bootloader may have a part chopped off...

 

[Powershot]

is there some way you can delete or shrink the virtual memory/swap file? That may be the culprit. I haven't tried that in win 7.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I know it can be done with partion magic, disc wizard or using a Linux app but thought I'd try it with Win 7 first. Want to make sure unmovable files in W7 don't get chopped off in the process making me have to reinstall everything from scratch if W7 gets farked up.

 

[The Options Menu]

OK the new PC has a 1 TB drive.
Created a ~450GB partition for Ubuntu from C Drive.
Left ~500GB for Win7 on the C drive.

Now I want it to shrink C down to 100GB leaving ~400 for a storage partition, which will probably become the say the D drive. When attempting to 'shrink' C drive Windows says I can only shrink C down another 15GB! Tried defragging C to push everything forward but when trying to shrink C again, I get the same warning saying C can only shrink down another 15GB to avoid damaging some 'unmovable' files!

WTF!
Is Win 7 scattered all over that 500GB C drive? And why can't I partition C drive down to ~100GB, leaving 400GB for a new storage partition? I don't want to partition C with Linux and take the chance of farking up Win 7, which BTW runs great.

if you're a Linux guy-- sudo apt-get install gparted

gparted is a Partition Magic killer that's free. Unfortunately the KDE equivalent 'partitionmanager' is quite feature equivalent yet. Gparted really kicks ass.

Since it's a linux box did you ever consider just buying another drive?

All you have to do is partition that, add some lines to your /etc/fstab, and copy the files over. A good logical candidate for that is your /home or a shared media directory. You should also consider a software RAID array for your linux bits...

 

[WoodPeckr]

The two partition setup now, will do all needed for now.
Just wanted to make the W7 partition smaller since it's not used much. This extra partition would give me more storage for both W7 & Ubuntu. Besides defragging a 100GB C-drive is faster than having to defrag a 500GB C-drive.

Yeah, heard gparted is a great app. Haven't used it yet since I usually used disc wizard by Seagate which is easy, fast and works great with M$.

Plan on getting another drive but wanted it to be a 100-160GB SSD when they drop in price more. Then the OEM 1TB HDD will be used for storage and I'll put W7 & Linux on the SSD. I have a couple extra HDDs but they are IDE and the new PC is all SATA so I can't use those IDE drives....

 

[Anynym]

I have a couple extra HDDs but they are IDE and the new PC is all SATA so I can't use those IDE drives....

For about $35 you can get an external case for the IDE drive(s) and connect via USB (and an external power supply). SATA cases are also available, of course.

Then, depending on what you want to use it for, you can leave it connected and powered up, or you can power it down when not in use (e.g. if you use the extra drives as backup for key files and don't want them exposed to spurious power spikes all the time).

 

[WoodPeckr]

For about $35 you can get an external case for the IDE drive(s) and connect via USB (and an external power supply). SATA cases are also available, of course.

Did that, since I already had an Ext enclosure for IDE drives with the old PC. It works great for backup. Already used it on the new PC with no problems with both W7 & Linux.