Quick Disk Partition Question

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Peteman100

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 7, 2007
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I have a 1TB disk that is 70% full. Is it possible to make a new partition on that disk that only takes up the free space? I obviously want to do it in a way that would insure the safety of the data already on the disk.

I'm using Windows 7 x64 Pro, if that matters.
 
I obviously want to do it in a way that would insure the safety of the data already on the disk.
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All partition resizers tell you to make a backup before use which you should have anyways. I do not always do that however it is a good idea. Remember that any mechanical drive can die at any time regardless of the manufacturer and how old the drive is or how much you have used the drive. At work where I have 200 to 300 drives this translates into 1% to 7% percent annual failure rate over the last 14 years. So of the 11 drives that died this year so far. 6 were 2.5 years or less. 1 was 6 months. The other 5 were from 2004.
 
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In disk management you can resize a partition. And then make the free space into a new partition.
 
Wouldn't you have to convert it to dynamic first if it is not already that.

Will it automatically defrag now so that you can get the drive down to the minimum size?
 
Forceman said:
I'm curious as to the purpose.
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I want to start dual booting, so I'm trying to make room on that secondary drive so I can format it into a different file system. But I want to make sure I don't damage the existing files when doing so. Based on all your responses, it seems that the partition manager should be able to discern between used and free space, and select accordingly?
 
Peteman100 said:
I want to start dual booting, so I'm trying to make room on that secondary drive so I can format it into a different file system. But I want to make sure I don't damage the existing files when doing so. Based on all your responses, it seems that the partition manager should be able to discern between used and free space, and select accordingly?
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Oh, makes sense. The only problem you might run into is if the partition manager can not move some files to minimize the partition. You should be able to go into the Win 7 disk management page, select the drive, select shrink partition (can't remember the exact option name) and it'll tell you how much it thinks it can shrink the partition. It is probably not the full 30% though. Not sure whether some non-MS products can do better, though my guess is they can.
 
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