How to shrink a hard drive volume [Tutorial]

[AceInfinity]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TipDks1oE3o[/yt]

Here's a video that I created on how to shrink a hard drive volume to allow for the creation of separate partitions. You might not be able to see it well by viewing it in this thread, so if you go to the youtube video and choose 720p, you should be able to follow it along better. I didn't get the video resolution correct during the record session so it's a bit horizontally stretched on my screen, but you should be able to still make it out if you view it in HD.

First, you'll need to open the start menu

Next, right-click on "Computer" or "My Computer" depending on what you have it named, and choose manage.

In the Storage item on the left pane, choose "Disk Management"

In here, you'll want to choose the drive volume that you want to shrink by right-clicking on one of the ones in the list and choosing "Shrink Volume"

Now you just have to enter in the amount of space that you want to free up on the disk in MB. (1024MB = 1GB)

Enjoy

[Omniscient]

Tip: Use the YT tags here for a larger youtube video box.

Otherwise nice video. I personally don't like to compress my drives.

[HecticHydra]

Wait so what happens to the other space? Will it be unallocated? Because I have an extra HD with 100+ gb left on it.

[★Cooldude★]

Wait so what happens to the other space? Will it be unallocated? Because I have an extra HD with 100+ gb left on it.

It will be unallocated until you chose to reallocate it, either with a new partition or expanding an already existing one.

[HecticHydra]

It will be unallocated until you chose to reallocate it, either with a new partition or expanding an already existing one.

Cool, Im soo doing this when I get home Thanks for the TUT and help

[★Cooldude★]

Cool, Im soo doing this when I get home Thanks for the TUT and help

No problem, I'm glad I could help.

[AceInfinity]

Tip: Use the YT tags here for a larger youtube video box.

Otherwise nice video. I personally don't like to compress my drives.

Hey thanks a lot I've made 2 videos for support forums so far, but i'll remember to use that tag for any newer ones that I create for the forum. Thanks for editing the post for the tags too, now I can see the exact tags that I should use for next time.

Wait so what happens to the other space? Will it be unallocated? Because I have an extra HD with 100+ gb left on it.

Yes it becomes unallocated space on your hard drive until you choose to make it a separate partition. But this is the first step to dividing up free space on your hard drive into separate partitions for use for various purposes.

When I bought my old computer with Vista pre-installed, it came with one drive partitioned into C:/ and D:/ drives. Drive letter D was used for the factory image of the original operating system, and C: was used for the regular installation files for the system. I bought another hard drive with it though so I could keep all of my personal files (music/video/picture/document/etc) in a separate place aside from that drive with everything else on it. Now that drive has more free space, and I won't lose data from my other drive unless it becomes corrupted. And it allows for a much easier system recovery if I need it as well.

Note: even though it's Vista I got it for a good deal, and I had no intention of running Vista on it later anyway. So I reformetted the hard drive and got Windows 7 on it instead lol. The computer specs were amazing, so I had no problems with requirements for having Windows 7 installed at all. 8GB RAM, good video card, USB3.0, Quad Core processor, built in wireless, DVD + BluRay drivers... it came with the full deal from the start.

[ImFocuzz]

I like this tutorial very worthy well I am commenting only because I was bored but high quality video! I don't like to compress my drives though:/

[AceInfinity]

I like this tutorial very worthy well I am commenting only because I was bored but high quality video! I don't like to compress my drives though:/

Compress is the wrong word to use. It's allocating a certain section of your drive to use for something else later on. Basically partitioning an unallocated section of your hard drive capacity to later turn into a partition for use on something else. Nothing is compressed.

[S_N_1]

Nice man ;)