Disk Management:shrink volume = 1/2 GB, free space = 19 GB

[Xtremeacecow124]

Hello,
I am using Windows 7 32-bit SP1 and have a Seagate laptop hard drive with a storage capacity of 111 GB. I have around 19 GB of space free. I want to shrink my Windows C: primary partition 17 GB. It is formatted to NTFS. Here's the catch. When I go to Disk Management and tell to shrink the volume, it queries shrink space for a long time and says that I have 425 MB available of shrink space! How do I fix it so the 17 GB of free space can be used as a separate partition instead of the 425 MB?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

And shrinking that partition will help this how, exactly?

My second partition holding Windows 10 will be much faster than the slower Windows 7 and I also want to try out Windows 10. Don't tell me to get VMware or Virtualbox now.

 

[USAFRet]

I don't think partitioning a single drive works the way you think it works.
Why would you think it would be 'much faster'?

Anyway...what happened with the defrag situation?

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

I don't think partitioning a single drive works the way you think it works.
Why would you think it would be 'much faster'?

Anyway...what happened with the defrag situation?

The graphics mods and old data from the specific partition makes it slower. It is now Pass 10:34% consolidated

 

[Reyaz123]

Want speed? Upgrade your ram to 8gb in a 64-bit OS

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

Want speed? Upgrade your ram to 8gb in a 64-bit OS

First of all RAM doesn't give you speed unless you don't have enough and I'm fine with 4 GB of it. I'm installing 64-bit windows 10. This was a thrown out laptop from a company and they had installed 32-bit for some reason. I don't plan on upgrading because I'm building a PC anyways.

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

It's done moment of truth!!!!!
It's querying....
We probably need to wait another hour for querying (just kidding).

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

There was an improvement by: Drum roll

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

1.5 GB ):

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

Thank you both for trying to help me, but alas it can't be done.
But wait there's one more question.
It says size of available shrink space in MB and after that Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB.
What if I exceed 2 GB?
Will I be able to get 17 GB?
Never mind it just doesn't let me... Oh well... I guess I just have to stay with slower than should be Windows 7...

 

[Reyaz123]

The disk management program will not allow you to do so. It would not give you the option

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

Thank you both for helping

 

[USAFRet]

Wipe the drive and start over.

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

Wipe the drive and start over.

I was going to do that in a month, but I wanted a temporary partition so yeah.

 

[Xtremeacecow124]

USAFRet's answer did help get 1.5 GB back so I will say that was the best answer.