- Shrink Partition Windows 7
- Cannot Shrink Volume Unmovable Files
- Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files File
- Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files Download
If you came across the message 'You cannot shrink a volume beyond the point where any unmovable files are located' when trying to shrink a partition on your disk using the Windows Disk Management tool, there's an easy fix to it.
Some Windows files are unmovable, and are unhelpfully allocated by Windows at the end or middle of the disk, so that one can only shrink C up to a limit. Which is exactly what you have discovered: the disk cannot be further reduced without destroying Windows. The only solution is to reinstall Windows in a smaller partition. Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files Rating: 5,8/10 5009 votes Although the Windows built-in Disk Management utility has an option to shrink the bootable partition, it only allows me to shrink it roughly by half, even though only 20 GiB on the partition is used.
So, you’ve recently purchased a new SSD and want to migrate your Windows 7 system drive over to it so you can enjoy some super fast computing action without the need to reinstall Windows and all of your favourite apps and games? Well, it’s all cake and bikkies if your source partition is already smaller than the destination drive, if not, you may be in for some heady times my friend.
![Unmovable Unmovable](https://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/general-discussion/213422d1486594219t-shrink-drive-untitled.png)
If your partition requires shrinking, especially if your current drive is at least twice the size of the destination drive, then you’ll likely encounter the fun fact that Windows has a whole bunch of unmovable files that prevent you from shrinking the partition beyond about 50% of its current size, but it can be done.
- You’ll need to run Computer Management. In Windows Explorer right click on Computer and choose Manage (you’ll probably get a UAC prompt).
- In the tree on the left hand side click on Disk Management under Storage. Right click on the drive you’d like to shrink, and choose Shrink Volume…
- You’ll see a Querying Disk Space window. Be patient it may take a while. Once the window appears, choose how much you want to shrink the drive by in megabytes (it will default to the maximum amount).
- Click Shrink.
- If you want to shrink your drive further, and you know you have more free space available, there is probably an unmovable file on the drive. Follow the steps under Removing an Unmovable File below.
- Run Computer Management.
- In the tree on the side click on Event Viewer under Computer Management (Local) > System Tools.
- Under Summary of Administrative Events (it may take a few seconds for its contents to appear) expand Information by clicking the [+] icon.
- Scroll down to find 259 in the Event ID column and double click on it.
- Under the General tab there will be a line that says – The last unmovable file appears to be: followed by a path and filename.
- Follow the instructions below for the specific file.
- Try shrinking your drive again. If you still can’t shrink your drive as much as you’d like then go to step 1 and wash, rinse, repeat until your drive is small enough. If you can’t shrink your drive at all then you’ve either done something wrong, or more likely I haven’t provided you with the necessary instructions. If you’re using an antivirus/antispyware program other than Microsoft Security Essentials you may need to uninstall it.
pagefile.sys
- In Windows Explorer right click on Computer and choose Properties.
- In the left hand pane, click Advanced system settings.
- In the Advanced tab under Performance click Settings…
- In the Advanced tab under Virtual memory click Change…
- Select the drive you want to resize from the list, then select the No paging file radio button.
- If you have another drive available you may want to select it and choose System managed size, as having no paging file at all may cause issues if you’re low on memory.
Windows.edb
Shrink Partition Windows 7
This is the database used by Windows indexing service and can easily be moved to another drive.
- Open Control Panel then click on System and Security then, under System, click on Check the Windows Experience Index then, on the blue left hand pane, click Adjust indexing options.
- Click the Advanced button.
- In the Index Settings tab under Index location click the Select new button.
- Create a new folder on another drive and give it a sensible name, select your new folder and click OK.
- Click OK, and your indexing files will now be moved to the new folder you created.
MpScanCache-0.bin
This is the cache file for Microsoft Security Essentials.
- Uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials by going to Control Panel and clicking Uninstall a program (listed under Programs).
- Select Microsoft Security Essentials and click the Uninstall button on the toolbar.
- Don’t forget to reinstall MSE after you’ve successfully shrunk your drive.
System Volume Information{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
This is System Restore data. You’ll need to disable System Restore (aka system protection) on your drive. Drmare tidal music converter 1 1 0 km.
- In Windows Explorer right click on Computer and choose Properties.
- In the left hand pane, click System protection.
- In the System Protection tab select your drive, then click the Configure… button.
- Select Turn off system protection.
- Click the Delete button to remove existing restore points from your drive.
- Click OK.
index.dat
This is an Internet Explorer history/cache file.
The Easy Way
- Install CCleaner (which can be found at www.piriform.com/ccleaner)
- Close any web browsers you have running and use CCleaner to clear your internet history, cache etc. Do not run Internet Explorer again otherwise it will recreate some of the files you just removed.
- Try resizing the drive again. If you can’t shrink the drive at all try The Hard Way below.
Cannot Shrink Volume Unmovable Files
![Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files](https://tr1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2011/01/10/193de793-c3ac-11e2-bc00-02911874f8c8/497976.png)
The Hard Way
- Download the Sysinternals utility called MoveFile which comes packaged with PendMoves (found at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556). Unzip the file to the folder of your choice. (This is a command line program that allows you to schedule a file to be moved or deleted the next time you restart your computer.)
- Copy the name of the unmovable file from the Computer Management event information panel without the ::$DATA part at the end. It might look something like ‘UsersUserNameAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsHistoryHistory.IE5index.dat’ although some of the folder names may vary.
- In Windows Explorer find the folder that you unzipped PendMoves.zip to. Hold down shift and right click on the folder, then choose Open command window here.
- Type movefile followed by a space, followed by a double quote. Then paste in the filename by clicking on the icon in the upper left corner of the Command Prompt window and choosing Edit > Paste from the menu. Finish off by typing a double quote followed by a space, followed by two double quotes, then press Enter. Your typed line should look something like this:
movefile “UsersUserNameAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsHistoryHistory.IE5index.dat” “” - Restart your computer, making sure not to run Internet Explorer before or after you’ve restarted.
Once your current system partition is small enough to fit on the new drive, you can very easily clone it onto the new drive with EASEUS Todo Backup Home (which is free from their website at www.todo-backup.com). You just need to make sure Windows isn’t using the destination drive for anything like system restore/protection, pagefile, indexing etc. This shouldn’t be a problem if it’s a brand spanking new drive.
After cloning the drive you’ll need to either disconnect the old drive, or go into your BIOS setup and change the boot order of the drives. The first couple of times you boot up onto the new drive Windows will probably run chkdsk.
Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files File
Don’t forget to re-enable virtual memory (pagefile), indexing and system restore if you disabled them, and reinstall your antivirus program if you removed it.
Windows 7 Shrink Disk Unmovable Files Download
For some reason Windows can’t figure out how to move some files around on disk. When attempting to shrink a volume, it will only allow you to shrink it to where the last immovable file is located. These are some things I found necessary to temporarily get rid of those immovable files so that an NTFS volume could be shrunk
1- Disable System Restore (Right click on Computer => Properties => System Protection => System Restore)
2- Disable Virtual Memory (Right click on Comptuer => Properties => Advanced System Settings => Performance (Settings) => Advanced Tab => Virtual Memory (Change) => No Paging File => Set.
3- Run Disk Cleanup to get rid of Thumbnails, Temporary Internet Files, and a bunch of other files that it makes no sense why they are immovable.
4- Restart the computer to have #1 and #2 take effect
2- Disable Virtual Memory (Right click on Comptuer => Properties => Advanced System Settings => Performance (Settings) => Advanced Tab => Virtual Memory (Change) => No Paging File => Set.
3- Run Disk Cleanup to get rid of Thumbnails, Temporary Internet Files, and a bunch of other files that it makes no sense why they are immovable.
4- Restart the computer to have #1 and #2 take effect
Try to shrink the volume again. If it still is unreasonably large, you will then have to look at Event Viewer to find which file is at the boundary.
1- Right click on Computer => Manage => Event Viewer => Windows Logs => Application.
2- Click on Filter Current Log, and put ‘259’ for the Event ID
3- Click on the latest event and look through the detail to find the problematic file. You can then attempt to delete that file (or set of files) manually. You may have to restart into safe mode to delete some files
1- Right click on Computer => Manage => Event Viewer => Windows Logs => Application.
2- Click on Filter Current Log, and put ‘259’ for the Event ID
3- Click on the latest event and look through the detail to find the problematic file. You can then attempt to delete that file (or set of files) manually. You may have to restart into safe mode to delete some files
It took me about 5 loops of doing the above before I was finally able to shrink my volume to the size that I wanted. After successful, you can then re-enable the features that you want (namely System Restore and Virtual Memory)