[SOLVED] Can't partition/shrink my C: drive

[Black Dovahbear]

Hey, I'm trying to partition my hardrive so I can run dual-boot with Linux and Windows. Currently, I'm on Windows 10 and using Window's built-in Disk Mangement tool. When I attempt to shrink my hardrive, the tool doesn't allow me to shrink it at all.

https://imgur.com/a/xJjnJkj

I haven't shrunk my C: drive before. I've followed instructions on a thread posted on a Windows forum and still no luck. I have done the following so far.

• I ran the disk cleanup wizard and removed the hibernation file and all system restore points.
• I disabled System Restore.
• I disabled pagefile and removed the pagefile file.
• I disabled the kernel memory dump.
• I double checked hibernation mode was disabled on my machine (I previously disabled it).
• I rebooted my machine.

I'm not sure what else I should try.
Thank you for your time and efforts. Cheers.

 

[CountMike]

Windows won't let you do much with C: partition while it's running. You could do it with bootable 3rd party partition manager like https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/gparted_live.html but would be advisable to make a full backup first whatever you do.

 

[Colif]

Curious question is why is the recovery partition 24gb? normal size is 500mb. wonder if the 13gb used in that folder is actually a windows.old folder, did you recently upgrade your version of win 10? as windows.old should vanish 10 days after an update.

did you run disk cleanup and also remove previous versions of windows?

not that it helps, but you could resize that partition to about 2gb after you remove windows.old, but not sure how much space linux needs to install.

 

[Black Dovahbear]

Curious question is why is the recovery partition 24gb? normal size is 500mb. wonder if the 13gb used in that folder is actually a windows.old folder, did you recently upgrade your version of win 10? as windows.old should vanish 10 days after an update.

did you run disk cleanup and also remove previous versions of windows?

not that it helps, but you could resize that partition to about 2gb after you remove windows.old, but not sure how much space Linux needs to install.

You asking this question makes me wonder why it is 24gb. No, I didn't recently upgrade to Windows 10. I've deleted the windows.old file after several months of having Windows 10. I didn't know it was supposed to be removed after 10 days... very strange. I have no clue as to why my recovery is 24gb. Thanks for the suggestion of shrinking the recovery partition.

 

[Black Dovahbear]

Windows won't let you do much with C: partition while it's running. You could do it with bootable 3rd party partition manager like https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/gparted_live.html but would be advisable to make a full backup first whatever you do.

I suspected it could have just been the limits of the Windows Disk Manager. Thank you for the confirmation.