Disk shrink tips

8/18/2006

Having trouble with a disk shrink utility? Either it will not shrink the disk or will not shrink it as much as you would like? This is likely the problem.

First step before using disk shrinking utilities is to defragment the disk. The Windows defrag utility should also be run multiple times as it does a "best time fit" run each time. However during the defrag you may notice that large sections of your disk are occupied by immovable files marked in green. If these are near the end of your disk as they often are, then this can prevent your disk from being shrunken.

What are they?

These immovable files are usually your page file, and your hibernation file if you have one. You cannot simply delete them, but you can get rid of them temporarily to perform a better defrag, and then enable them again. For the hibernation file, it is in control panel, power, and then disable hibernation. For the page file you can only disavle it if you have 512 MB or more of RAM. It is in the My Computer properties, advanced, performance, advanced. Set it to no page file, and do not forget to click the "Set" button before pressing Ok. Now reboot, and defrag. After defrag remember to turn these options back on.

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