Why you can’t shrink a volume on Windows 10. How to compress and how to create a volume or partition in Windows

Good day. Today we’ll look at a fairly popular topic for beginners: working with already created sections of hard disk (you already bought a new one HDD?:) and we will consider such operations as reducing the volume (compression) of the hard drive and expanding it at the expense of the unallocated area. To do this, we will not use any third-party programs, but will use the Disk Management utility built into the Windows operating system. So, why might we need this knowledge? Suppose you initially had it on your hard drive, but over time you decided that one is enough to store movies, music and photos, it’s easier to search :) Or another case, you have two local drives on your hard drive (let’s assume 2Tb), one for system (local drive C), the second for personal data (drive D), but when you partitioned them, you left too little space for drive C and this constantly creates discomfort for you. It is to solve such situations that this article was written.

In this article I will do, sequentially:
— Compression (reduction) of the local disk,
— Expansion (increase) of the local disk due to a new unallocated area.

This is what we need.

1) The first thing we need is to open the Disk Management utility. For the lucky owners of Windows 8.1 and 8, just right-click on the “Start” button (or in the lower left corner of the desktop for Windows 8) and select “Disk Management”. Everyone else needs to go to “Control Panel → System and Security → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → Storage Devices → Disk Management.”

3) Right-click on the partition on the right side of the window and select “Shrink Volume”.

4) A dialog box will open asking you to select the volume to compress. This window shows the current partition size, available (unused) space for compression, and the size of the local disk after compression, in megabytes. To maximize disk compression, you must defragment the partition before this operation. I'm using an empty disk, so I have almost all of its capacity available for compression. Enter the required number of megabytes in the “Size of compressed space” line and click “Compress”.

6) Now we will expand the partition using this unallocated area. To do this, right-click on the partition and select “Extend volume”.

7) The “Volume Expansion Wizard” will open, click next.

This page shows the available and selected unallocated areas, and you can also specify how much of the unallocated area should be used to expand the local disk (item “Select the size of the allocated space”). I use the entire volume, you look at your circumstances.

Windows 10 is a convenient and fast system on all types of devices, however, it is prohibitively heavy for internal memory computer.

On some devices, this is especially true weak computers or tablets, Windows system It takes too long disk space. The most common problem for tablets is a situation where constantly automatically downloaded OS updates clog up the memory so much that there is not enough space for regular programs.

There are many ways to solve this problem, comprehensive information about which we will provide below. Next, we’ll look at some of the most effective and convenient ones.

Let's start with the most complex ones, and then move on to the simple device configuration options provided in the OS.

This method is associated with deep configuration of the computer, but still does not require special manipulations with the system and is the easiest to free up a significant amount of information on the disk.

This tool is called "Compact OS" and its job is to "compress" system files, similar to the process of archiving data so that it takes up a lot of space.

The process for launching such compression is as follows:

The system will start compressing all files. This process may take about 20 minutes or more, depending on the amount of data on the system.

As a result, the volume occupied by the OS will be reduced by one and a half to two gigabytes.

Removing unnecessary files

Even lighter and quick way, which is performed without additional tools. However, the size of the space occupied by the system will not decrease much.

You can delete unnecessary and intermediate data (temporary files) that have accumulated in the system over the entire period of use:

1. In the main settings interface, launch the “System” icon, where all the settings for the operation of the OS are collected.

   

2. In this system settings menu, you need to select “Storage” in the sidebar of the options sections, where, in fact, the files to be deleted are located. In this section, select the location “This computer”.

   

3. Information about system memory usage will appear, and the buttons additional functions. You need to scroll to the end of the page and click on the special “Temporary files” function button, which controls the storage of these now unnecessary elements.

   

4. In this menu, you can view the properties of files stored in additional locations and clean your computer from them. Here you can delete temporary files by clicking the corresponding button at the top of the list.

   

Disk Cleanup

find out effective methods disk cleaning in our new article -

This method involves using standard means Windows self-cleaning installed by the developer into the system itself.

You can clean the entire disk with the system as follows:

1. First you need to open the properties of the “C” drive in the “This PC” menu in the “Explorer” system. This can be done by right-clicking the submenu and selecting the appropriate item at the very bottom of the list.

   

2. The computer will launch a special small properties window for this disk. You need to go to the “General” tab (although the system often immediately opens a window at this point). Here, next to the disk capacity status chart, click on the “Disk Cleanup” button.

   

   Here the system will not start immediately necessary tool. At this point, you need to wait a little while the computer indexes (collects information) unnecessary files that are not needed by the system, users or programs and are not used anywhere else.

3. As a result, the Disk Cleanup window will open. Here in a small window you can select elements that can be deleted. Since these files are often not critical, it is advisable to mark all types. After this, you can click “OK” and start the cleaning process, or remove additional components.

   

4. To free up more memory from system files, you need to click on the system file cleanup function button in the same window. The system will again conduct an “audit” and create another tab in the cleaning window – “Advanced”. Here, with one click, you can clean the system from its outdated rollback copies, as well as from unused programs.

Deleting the update cache

This method is the least dangerous for user data, since it clears the system of downloaded but not installed update packages, or previous versions software upgrade. If the necessary elements are deleted, the system can always be restored by simply downloading the previous update using standard tools.

The sequence of actions looks like this:

1. The first steps are to turn off the System Update Center. Using the “Search” tool in the main panel, enter “services.msc” and launch the found configuration document.

   

2. In the window that will immediately open by the system, find the “System Update Center” management option and open it by double-clicking.

   

3. An additional window will be launched to configure the properties of a specific parameter. In the central tab, under the characteristics of the state of the current process, click on the “Stop” option, then confirm your action at the bottom of the window.

   

4. Through the main folder of Explorer (“This PC”), open the following folders one by one: “Windows”, the main folder with the system and all files associated with it. “SoftwareDistribution”, a folder with settings and software for managing the capabilities of new system components. “Download” – a special download folder for downloaded software.

   

5. In the download folder that opens, open the “File” item in the top panel, and in the submenu, among other debugging elements, select the option to configure folder settings.

   

6. After launching the parameters window, go to the “View” sub-item, and in the additional parameters field set the state for hidden elements to “Show” hidden files" Also, to clear a larger amount of information, uncheck the box next to the option to hide special protected files.

   

7. Then, select absolutely all downloaded update files in the folder and delete them, thus clearing all outdated, faulty and space-consuming update files.

   

8. When the uninstallation process is completed, you must run the OS updater again for the system to function normally. To do this, reopen the properties window for this component (see previous paragraphs), and in the main “General” tab, under the status indicator, click “Run”.

   

Note! If the user wishes to no longer receive constant system updates in order to prevent the system from becoming overloaded in the future, this option can be left.

Video - How to reduce the size of Windows 10 on your hard drive

Since Vista and 7, operating system Windows has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of your primary partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and don't have enough additional disks. By shrinking the volume, you will free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other necessary partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using GUI Windows, and for more advanced users we will also describe a method using the command line.

Before you begin, make sure you have backed up all your important data.

Shrink a volume or partition using Disk Management

If you have Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type “disk management” in the search box and press Enter. If you are a Windows 8.x user, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen (or press Win keys+ X) and select Disk Management.

Disk Management is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer ( hard disks, USB sticks, CD/DVD, etc.)

Select the primary partition you want to compress, right-click on it and select Compress.

As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining available space for compression.

Specify the amount of space you would like to regain and click "Compress". Remember that the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB.

You can use the space freed (or unoccupied) in this way to create a new partition.

Shrink a volume or partition using the command line

To open Command Prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "cmd", right-click cmd.exe in the search results and select "Run as administrator". In Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list volume. This command will display a list of all drives on the computer.

Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, enter select volume 1 and press Enter.

Enter shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.

Now you have two options: first, you can simply enter shrink, and then Windows will shrink all available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume to be compressed. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired=volume_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired=2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value specified in the "Maximum number of reused bytes" line. So with this command you can specify the exact amount of space to be compressed.

If you do everything correctly, after the operation is completed you will see a message:

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: number_in_megabytes

That's all! To shut down DISKPART correctly, enter exit and press Enter.

Things to consider:

• When you try to shrink a primary partition or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the area where non-movable files are located (for example, the shadow copy storage area, hibernation, page files, etc.) Let's assume if there is a "first" empty space on the Windows drive and then there are non-movable files followed by a "second" empty space, you will only be able to shrink the partition to the end of the second empty space since there are non-movable files in the middle.
• If a large number of bad clusters are detected, the compression will fail.
• You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or partitions with the NTFS file system.

Have a great day!

Windows 10 offers quite a lot of options for working with memory storage devices. Compared to previous ones Windows versions, the current disk management tool has more features and is capable of completely replacing command line. However, you can still use it if you wish.

How to open Disk Management in Windows 10

To open Disk Management, do the following:

There are also several other options for getting to the Disk Management menu. For example:

• Type the command diskmgt.msc into the “run” line. The “Run” line is called by the Win+R key combination (or create an executable file with this command).
• In the task manager, select the “File” section and go to “Disk Management”.
• And there is also an option to open a command line utility to manage disks. To do this, enter the command ‘DiskPart.exe’ into the Execute window.

If one method doesn't work, just try another. If, when you try to open disk management, the system displays a service connection error, then you need to make sure that the antivirus program has not deleted the dmdskmgr.dll file

If this file is not found, you need to restore it to its original location. You can return it or take it from boot disk Windows, or using the check system files command. This is done like this:

1. Open the Run menu (Win+R) and enter cmd there.
2. In the command line that opens, you need to enter the command sfc and then scannow.
3. To verify the data, the program will need to specify the path to installation disk with your Windows 10. Do this and the files will be scanned.

Checking for errors

The check can also be done through the command line, but it is much easier to do this through the Disk Management program. It is enough to do the following:

How to create a local disk

If you want to create a local disk in addition to the one where you have Windows installed, you can do this through the same Disk Management program. After opening it, take the following actions:

1. Select an unallocated area of ​​the disk. The area available for division will be shown below in black.
2. Right-click on this location to open a context window and select “Create a simple volume...”
3. Following the program’s instructions, we reach the “Specifying the volume size” section. Here you can set either the full amount of memory available on the disk, or incomplete if you want to split one disk into several local ones.
4. Next, set the letter designation for the local disk.
5. Then all that remains is to ask file system(It's worth installing NTFS these days as it has no file size limits). The remaining values ​​can be left as default.
6. In the next window, all you have to do is confirm the specified data and the local disk will be created.

Shrinking and expanding a volume in Windows 10

Volume expansion is an increase in the size of a local disk using its unallocated area. The area of ​​new hard drives, and it can also be obtained by compressing local disks.

How to shrink a volume in Windows 10

To shrink a volume in Windows 10, follow these steps:

Possible compression problems

If you are unable to shrink the volume, you should do the following:

• Defragment the disk - this may increase the maximum available value for compression.
• Disable antivirus programs before attempting compression. For example, Norton antivirus may block the ability to shrink the disk.
• And also, to increase the space available for compression, you can disable the page file.

How to expand a volume in Windows 10

If you already have unallocated disk space, then expanding the volume is not difficult. This is done like this:

Possible problems with expansion

If you have problems expanding the volume. Check the following:

• Make sure you have a fairly large unallocated area on your disk.
• For expansion, only areas from adjacent departments can be used. That is, if you have an unallocated area that is not adjacent to the volume you are expanding, then you will not be able to expand it. In such cases they can help third party programs.
• Make sure that the number of created partitions is no more than four. There is a limit to the number of primary partitions created.

Resizing your hard drive (video)

Defragmentation

Disk defragmentation is needed to increase the response speed of files by placing them more densely on the hard drive. It's very easy to do:

1. Right-click on the disk and go to “Properties”
2. Open the “Service” section
3. Click the optimize button.
4. Select the disk that we want to fragment and click “Optimize”.
5. We are waiting for the end of disk fragmentation.

Cleaning

Disk Cleanup can also help you free up needed space. This can be done using the utility of the same name. For this:

Merging disks

To merge partitions of your disk into one local partition, you need to use third-party programs. However, using Windows tools you can achieve the same result by simply transferring all the files from one disk to another, then deleting the local disk that we don’t need and expanding the second one to the space available after deleting.
But if you specifically want to combine two disks, you can, for example, use the EaseUS Partition Master program. We do the following:

Now you know how to manage disks on your computer and can easily create the necessary local disks. I am very pleased that in Windows 10, disk management has become even more accessible to all users and now everyone can perform any manipulations with disks.

Starting with Vista and 7, the Windows operating system has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of the main partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and don't have enough additional disks. By shrinking the volume, you will free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other necessary partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using the Windows GUI, and for more advanced users we will also describe a method using the command line.

Before you begin, make sure you have backed up all your important data.

Shrink a volume or partition using Disk Management

If you have Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type “disk management” in the search box and press Enter. If you are a Windows 8.x user, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen (or press Win+X) and select Disk Management.

"Disk Management" is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer (hard drives, USB drives, CD/DVDs, etc.)

Select the primary partition you want to compress, right-click on it and select Compress.

As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining available space for compression.

Specify the amount of space you would like to regain and click "Compress". Remember that the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB.

You can use the space freed (or unoccupied) in this way to create a new partition.

Shrink a volume or partition using the command line

To open Command Prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "cmd", right-click cmd.exe in the search results and select "Run as administrator". In Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list volume. This command will display a list of all drives on the computer.

Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, enter select volume 1 and press Enter.

Enter shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.

Now you have two options: first, you can simply enter shrink, and then Windows will shrink all available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume to be compressed. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired=volume_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired=2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value specified in the "Maximum number of reused bytes" line. So with this command you can specify the exact amount of space to be compressed.

If you do everything correctly, after the operation is completed you will see a message:

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: number_in_megabytes

That's all! To shut down DISKPART correctly, enter exit and press Enter.

Things to consider:

• When you try to shrink a primary partition or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the area where non-movable files are located (for example, the shadow copy storage area, hibernation, page files, etc.) Let's assume if there is a "first" empty space on the Windows drive and then there are non-movable files followed by a "second" empty space, you will only be able to shrink the partition to the end of the second empty space since there are non-movable files in the middle.
• If a large number of bad clusters are detected, the compression will fail.
• You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or partitions with the NTFS file system.

Now I want to show you how you can use the unallocated space on your disk and create a new volume or partition using the Disk Management tool or using the Command Prompt.

How to create a new volume or partition through Disk Management

Open the Disk Management tool. To do this, open the Run dialog (Win + R), enter the command diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Right-click on the unallocated space and click Create Simple Volume.

In the creation wizard window simple volume click "Next".

Enter the amount of space you want to use for the new volume (or partition) and click Next.

In the next step, you can change the formatting options, but this is not necessary, especially if you are happy with the default settings. Additionally, you can change the volume label to any name you prefer, but it's best to use something descriptive: for example, "Movies", "Documents", " Backups» etc. You can also enable the option to compress files and folders. When all settings are selected, click Next.

Review your selections. If you want to change anything, click "Back" to return to the previous steps. If you are happy with everything, click "Done".

After this, a new partition should be successfully created on your computer.

How to create a new volume or partition via the command line

Open a command prompt with administrator rights.

Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list disk. This command will list the drives on your PC. It will also help you determine the disk number with unallocated space.

Now enter the command select disk with the volume number and press Enter: for example, select volume 0 .

Advice: you can manually specify the size of the new partition. To do this, contact the team create partition primary need to add size=x(Where x– partition size in megabytes). The entire command will look like this: create partition primary size=1000

Now that the partition has been created, enter the command list volume and press Enter. As a result, you will see a volume (in my case volume 3) with a RAW file system. However, it would be more correct to say that this is a volume without a file system.

Next, you need to format the partition to the NTFS file system. Enter the command format fs=ntfs quick(Where quick– this is an indication that the quick formatting method should be used) and press Enter.

You have just successfully created and formatted a partition. The last thing to do is assign a drive letter to the new partition. This is also a fairly simple task.

Enter the command list volume, note the number of the new partition and enter the command select volume, not forgetting to indicate the section number. For example, in my case the command would look like this: select volume 3 .

Now you have two options to assign a drive letter: you can simply enter the command assign, but then the DiskPart tool will automatically assign one of the available letters to the new partition (this is what is shown in the screenshot below); or you can enter the command assign letter=f, Where f is the drive letter. If you choose the second option, make sure that the letter you want to assign is not already assigned to another drive.

That's all! Everything written above works in Vista, Windows 7 and 8.x.

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