Partitioning main drive in Windows 7. Anyone?

Question

Hard Drive Partition Problem in Windows 7. Anyone?
Hi there. Well, I've a 500 GB HD on my laptop. I wanna make two partitions 50 GB for the primary drive (C:) and rest 450 GB as another drive for my data. In Computer Management, I tried shrinking the main drive to make it as another partition but I can shrink it up to only 250 GB, resulting in making two partitions of 250 GB.

My question are -

1) Why can't I shrink more then 250 GB?

2) Is there anyway to make two partitions according to my preference. i.e 50 GB (C: Drive), and 450 GB.

Just to make it easier I've taken a screen shot of the my drives. The disk is dynamic also.

http://i52.tinypic.com/am7h47.jpg
10 minutes ago - 4 days left to answer.
Additional Details


Well, I tried partitioning during Boot option too.. But, the option to delete the main partition is greyed out. I can't delete it, hence I'm not able to make new volumes from the unallocated space. However, there is an option to format the hard drive. I just wanna know if it is just me or everyone face the same problem. Also, the disk is dynamic, does it have anything to do with it?

Answer 1

You have your disk configured as RAID 0. Thats why the entire disk is considered "dynamic" and you can't shrink it smaller than half the size of the disk. Start the install over and just format a 50GB section for your partition -- you can make the other drive later in device manager after WIn7 is installed.Go ahead and delete any drives you need to in order to do this. Don't try to make addiitional drives at the start as you are accidentally setting up a RAID.

Answer 2

Dynamic disk (rather than basic) allow you more configuration options (such as RAID). You're not really using the dynamic features at the moment, so it doesn't make much difference.



The problem with "shrink partition" is that it cannot move all types of files. Yours has run into something that is not relocatable at the 227 GB point, so it won't shrink past that.



You have a few options from here:

1) run a fancier disk defragmenter (such as http://www.diskeeper.com/ ) that can move system files such as the page file and MSFT (directory). Then you should be able to shrink more.

2) Reinstall Windows. In this case, you'll need to start from the DVD, but you can delete the existing partitions and recreate them as the size you wish.

3) Use a system backup and restore utility to backup your system partition and restore it to a smaller 50GB partition.

Answer 3

You did no longer let us know how great your stress is. i'm hoping that's great. enable's say you have a 500 GB stress. never make the accepted win7 section and the Linux section precisely an identical length. this type you're starting to be the means to nicely known them whilst using imprecise linux instructions basically from their length. So reckoning on my desires, i might make a 250 GB Win7 partition (NTFS), a 50 GB shared archives storage partition (NTFS), a change partition at 3X your RAM length (like 6 GB or regardless of) then each and every little thing leftover as ext4. start up along with your Win7 disk and use the partitioner there to create the 250 and 50 GB partitions. deploy homestead windows. Then use the Linux disk for the others and deploy Linux. good luck.

Answer 4

If you want to set up partitions in a specific configuration, you are going to have to do it from scratch. This means obtaining a Windows 7 installer (not a recovery disc set), deleting all the data and partitions on your hard drive, partitioning your hard drive the way you want it, formatting the partitions, and THEN reinstalling Windows 7 onto the partitions you have created.



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Answer 5

Try to use a third party partitioning tool that works with NTFS. An overview of some:



http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

http://www.tech-faq.com/partition-software.html



But make sure to BACK UP YOUR DATA! :)