I'm trying to shrink my main partition about 45 GB to make a new partition.
The problem is, when I try to shrink it, it tells me there are only 45 MB of
shrink space available. The drive, however, has 60 free GB. Can anyone help
me recover my lost space? Thanks

The built-in shrink utility will be able to decrease the partition size till
it bumps against the first unmovable/locked system file.

If you want to decrease the partition further you will need a 3rd party Disk
Management tool. I use Acronis Disk Director suite. The latest posted
version (ver 10.0 build 2160) is 100% Vista compatible. After installing the
program, create the
emergency CD. Reboot the computer and boot up with this CD. Do your
partition work from there. You will not be hampered with locked files.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)



"This is so annoying....." <Thisissoannoying@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:1D85E9DC-03C4-4A36-A626-4BBE7574EC33@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
> I'm trying to shrink my main partition about 45 GB to make a new
> partition.
> The problem is, when I try to shrink it, it tells me there are only 45 MB
> of
> shrink space available. The drive, however, has 60 free GB. Can anyone
> help
> me recover my lost space? Thanks[/color]

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:46:01 -0700, This is so annoying.....
<Thisissoannoying@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I'm trying to shrink my main partition about 45 GB to make a new partition.
>The problem is, when I try to shrink it, it tells me there are only 45 MB of
>shrink space available. The drive, however, has 60 free GB. Can anyone help
>me recover my lost space? Thanks[/color]

How does Vista "see" your hard drive?

Go to Control Panel, Admin, Computer System, Drive Management.

Does Disk Management show any unallocated space? If it does this space
is currently wasted and not being used by any partition and isn't used
unless and until you reclaim it.

If you don't have any unallocated space you need to take some free
space from one partition and give it to the other. I wouldn't trust
Vista to do it. Better to buy any of the several partition utilities,
just make sure it is Vista compatible.

Most applications do what you want in a two step process. You first
shrink the partition where you don't need all the free space reducing
it to something smaller. This creates unallocated space from the free
space. The second phase expands the other partition which claims the
unallocated space you just took from the other partition. The end
result is your files get redistributed as necessary and you shouldn't
lose any files.

Dnia Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:46:01 -0700, This is so annoying.....
napisa³(a):
[color=blue]
> I'm trying to shrink my main partition about 45 GB to make a new partition.
> The problem is, when I try to shrink it, it tells me there are only 45 MB of
> shrink space available. The drive, however, has 60 free GB. Can anyone help
> me recover my lost space? Thanks[/color]

Try BootIt [url]http://www.terabyteunlimited.com[/url]. It's free for 30 day, trial
is fully functional.
--
Michal Kawecki [Windows - Shell/User MVP]
Warsaw, PL