Shrinking the partition would be much faster than defragging, usually you have to defrag more than once to get any stubborn files moved.
However, shrinking or making any changes to a partition can be risky. But since you already have the "big image" there should be no risk because you could always restore the full image back onto the drive.
Partition Wizzard can be run in windows (it reboots into a linux enviroment to do the work), there is also a bootable disk image you can download, look under the " free for home use" section.
I think I'm out of luck. I booted from a hard drive with Windows 7. Ran fragment analysis and it reported 0% fragmentation but checking Shrink Volume and it said:
Total size: 1220954 MB
Size of available shrink space: 364714 MB
Total size after shrink: 856240
Does that mean there is no way of getting around this.
I'm not smart enough to figure out how to do what Dave said
quote:
"If your page file is in the way (it's usually the first unmovable file found after a defrag), you can temporarily disable it, reboot, and then re-enable it. On a defragged drive it will usually get re-written towards the front of the drive right after all the data."
I'm also wondering, if the other options and software can help after Windows 7 says that the best I can get is 856240 MB
The most reliable method would be to resize the partition on the large HD to 240 GB. Image the 240 GB partition and restore the image to unallocated space on the 250 GB HD. Now you can resize (up) the partition on the old HD if you wish.
I understand that Brian and I'm trying to do it. The problem is I don't know how and I'm slowly trying things.
I disabled the page file in Vista, deleted it. Emptied the trash. Restarted Vista without a problem. Then booted from Win7, tried the Shrink Volume again, but it still didn't allow me to shrink to less than 830 GB. Then from Win7 I defragmented the hard drive again- it went very slowly through a consolidation process. Then tried Shrink Volume again and it allowed my to shrink with about another 30MB which is very little. So currently I'm repeating that process again and again hoping it will get down to 250 GB but with that speed it may take days. I wonder how this can be done easier.
I should have been more specific. Resize the partition with a third party partitioning app. I use BING but Dave mentioned Partition Wizard which is a popular free app.
I realized that I didn't mention that the volume I want to shrink is a RAID0 partition using two 640GB drives. It appears that Home Edition bootable CD of Partition Wizard doesn't work with RAID volumes. When I tried its bootable CD it couldn't see the RAID volume.
It is getting more and more complicated and I'm running out of hope. Initially I thought that what I want to do is a simple thing that can be easily solved by current technology.
Meanwhile I learnt how to get some fragmentation report using the command prompt. Here's a copy of it:
C:\Windows\system32>defrag.exe d: -w -f -v Microsoft Disk Defragmenter Copyright (c) 2007 Microsoft Corp. Invoking defragmentation on (D:)... Pre-Defragmentation Report: Volume Information: Volume size = 811.27 GB Cluster size = 4 KB Used space = 60.79 GB Free space = 750.48 GB Fragmentation: Total fragmented space = 0% Average fragments per file = 1.00 Movable files and folders = 561297 Unmovable files and folders = 10 Files: Fragmented files = 46 Total file fragments = 113 Folders: Total folders = 61953 Fragmented folders = 0 Total folder fragments = 0 Free space: Free space count = 203 Average free space size = 3.69 GB Largest free space size = 144.13 GB Master File Table (MFT): MFT size = 1003.62 MB MFT record count = 1027711 MFT usage = 100% Total MFT fragments = 2 Note: File fragments larger than 64MB are not included in the fragmentat ion statistics.
It says that I have 10 unmovable files and folders. Here's what I don't understand. Does that mean that nothing can move these files and it will be a waste of time trying different programs and solutions or it means that Windows can't move them but could be possible with other programs?
I also tried to prevent Windows from producing unmovable files by disabling certain features like page file hibernation and etc. But apparently it still has those.
An idea. Do you have DOS Ghost? eg Ghost 2003. I don't know if it will image your RAID volume but if it does you should be able to restore to a smaller partition as Ghost 2003 doesn't do a sector based restore. It packs the files into the start of the target partition.
Brian, I was trying to ask if any program can move unmovable files, not only defrag programs. In other words, when Windows reports a file as unmovable, does that mean Windows was not able to move it or this is a special kind of file that no other program including partitioning programs or any solution will not be able to move it.
I don't have DOS Ghost. And I'm very surprised that Ghost 15 being the latest version can't do that. Why would I need empty sectors?
Now the question is - is there a program, any kind of program that can make a disk image and restore it to a disk with the size of the data?
An "unmovable" file is a file that can't be moved by windows, more specifically it can't be moved by the current version of windows being used. Usually it can be moved from "outside" of windows.
Try Brian's suggeston with BING, that would be the easiest to try first. If it doesn't work there may be another option.
May I'm not understanding what movable means but I thought that if a file can not be moved that also means that any programs including those you mentioned "Ghost 2003 and the early Acronis" will not be able to resize the volume too because that requires moving the unmovable files on a different place of the restored disk.
But may be you mean that technically movable means something like cut and pasted while not restoring empty sectors is not considered as moving a file?
Those files can't be moved while Windows is running. But BING (not running in Windows) will move the files when it resizes the partition. Ghost 2003 will "move" the files by restoring them to a different LBA in the new partition. Ghost 15 restores all files to the same relative LBA in the new partition. Most image/restore apps restore in the same manner as Ghost 15. Sector based.
Thanks Dave, saw your reply after making my previous post.
Quote:
"An "unmovable" file is a file that can't be moved by windows, more specifically it can't be moved by the current version of windows being used. Usually it can be moved from "outside" of windows."
But I tried to defrag the hard drive with inactive Vista on it, while using Windows 7. I booted from another hard drive with Windows 7 installed on it. The report I posted earlier was from Disk Defragmenter of Windows 7 trying to defrag the hard drive in question that has inactive Vista on it.
The files ware still reported as unmovable even when the system using them is inactive. That's why I'm worried that nothing can move them.
Usually it is "unmovable" because it's a system file in use or it is locked by the operating system. So the current operating system can't move it, but usually it can be moved "ouside" of the current operating system.
For example, that "partition wizzard" program runs on Linux and the old version of Ghost runs on DOS.
When it comes down to it, any file is just a bunch of ones and zeros written to a drive and can be moved if nothing is locking them or currently using them.
The way you explain unmovable files is how I expected to be, but as I said earlier, I used Windows 7 to defrag an inactive hard drive (not the hard drive of the active system) and it reported 10 unmovable files and this is what I can't understand.
And regarding the fact that old versions were able to restore without including the empty sectors but all new programs include them is beyond my comprehension. Why on earth I would need empty sectors if I don't have the space for them? This basically restricts restoring to a smaller hard drives which is a big downgrade from the earlier versions.
