Can't shrink my partition

[napster100]

Hi guys, I'm trying to install a program but don't have enough free space on that partition, so I'm trying to shrink another to add more space to the one I want to install the program on.

My drive layout is this: drive 1 is MBR and contains 2 partitions (System, OS partition) and drive 2 is GPT and also contains 2 partitions (Backup, Data).

I want to install onto the Data partition, but there isn't enough free space, so I want to shrink the Backup partition by 50GB (it has 290GB free space). My problem lays with the actual shrinking, I've tried using EaseUS Partition Master to shrink it, but it makes small progress then just hangs. So I then tried DISKPART in CMD, I selected the volume and entered the "shrink" command along with the "desired" argument specifying 50000MB (being 50GB) but that just hangs too. The I thought because I have temp files, appdata ect... on the Data partition (as drive 1 is an SSD), that maybe preventing any disk management. I then booted up from a windows installation USB I had previously created and accessed CMD from there, that way none of my system files are active, and tried to shrink from there entering the same commands, I left it for a good 30 minutes but that just seems to hang as well.

If it helps, my OS is Windows 7. And I just had a thought, would it be because Windows 7 isn't very compatible with GPT?

Does anyone have any other ideas to try? Thanks.

 

[i7Baby]

Have you tried Disk Management? It won't shrink to smaller than the data allows.

Windows 7 is fine with GPT.

 

[napster100]

Have you tried Disk Management? It won't shrink to smaller than the data allows.

Windows 7 is fine with GPT.

Yes I did, I forgot to add that in too. That just hangs as well.

I just don't understand what the problem is... The HDD is less than 6 months old, and I've also run chkdsk too just in case there maybe a few problems but that returned clean.

I think my next thing to try is a Linux Live USB...

 

[eldragon0]

>>>AS LONG AS IT'S A MECHANICAL HDD<<<

Do a full defrag. Rearguards of how fragmented or not fragmented the disk it, let the full thing run. This is a very very common issue with server's.

 

[napster100]

>>>AS LONG AS IT'S A MECHANICAL HDD<<<

Do a full defrag. Rearguards of how fragmented or not fragmented the disk it, let the full thing run. This is a very very common issue with server's.

I didn't know a fragmented drive would affect it so much other than increasing the time needed to sort the data. It is a mechanical drive too.
Knowing that it's a common issue with servers may prove handy knowledge to know in the future, thanks for that!

EDIT: It appears Windows built in defragmenter defragged only 2 days ago. I'll rerun but with my prefered program (defraggler), to see if that makes a difference.

EDIT 2: Windows built in defragmenter says theres no fragments. But Defraggler is saying there is, and there's files at the end of the partition, maybe this is the problem, will find out eventually, it seems to be moving a lot of blocks around.

 

[napster100]

>>>AS LONG AS IT'S A MECHANICAL HDD<<<

Do a full defrag. Rearguards of how fragmented or not fragmented the disk it, let the full thing run. This is a very very common issue with server's.

It worked! Thank you very much!