Maintenance :: Disk Management Only Allowing 20GB Partition Out Of 946GB
Feb 20, 2014
I've long been an XP user, just purchased a new desktop with 8.1 and a 2TB HDD this week.
I was partitioning some drives to organize things, and i am stuck.
On a 2TB drive, i have so far allocated 900GB over 4 drives for files, etc. [100,200,300,300]
I have 946.42GB left on my C, and i was hoping to get at least 2-3 more 200/300GB drives before leaving the remainder to C, but when i attempt to shrink my C drive, Disk Management tells me ive only got 20835MB/20GB available space to shrink. Wtf? I have literally added nothing to the computer except uTorrent, ive used Disk Optimizer to defrag the C drive 3 times, and still all of this space is unavailable? The OS has unmovable files scattered that loosely??
After installing Windows 8 my computer had four partitions; I thought they'd be fine but want to change it to have two big ones, one for Media and one for typical C: usage. I moved everything out of D: to delete the volume so I would have free space to the right of C:, which I've read is what you need to do in order to extend partitions using Disk Management. However, the option is still greyed-out when right-clicking C: as shown:
I did this because I've read mixed things about using 3rd-party software to extend partitions; some that don't truly extend it and just trick your computer into merging the two... I like doing things the purest way possible and would like to truly combine C: with the free space to the right of it. Why the option is not available?
I have a laptop with Windows 8 installed in a 256Gb SSD. There's a 32Gb recovery partition whose purpose is to recover the drive to factory install. Since I already imaged this recovery partition to an external drive I would like to delete it and merge it to the main C partition to increase capacity. I know I can do this easily with 3rd party solutions (Easus, etc), but I'd like to do it using the Windows 8 built in Disk Management. I tried but when I right click on the 32Gb recovery partition the only option that shows up is "Help", it does not show any other option that shows for the other partitions (Shrink, etc).
Unable to start Disk Management. I tried the following without success:
- Check file integrity - Repair with DISM - Start the Virtual Disk Service and Volume SHadoy Copy manually and set them to Automatic and Manual (it starts, but Disk Management cannot connect to it) - Disable Firewall and Antivirus - Verified that my system is malware free - Tried opening it in Safe Mode
Is it still possible to bring a disk offline using Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) in Windows 8 the same way it was possible in Windows 7 or is using Diskpart.exe the only way?
I originally built my computer with two 1 TB hdd as RAID1 with Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit as the OS.
The boot files eventually became corrupted. I could not reinstall Windows 8 on the RAID 1 array. So I then purchased two 2 TB HDD and created a new RAID 1 array which Windows 8 readily loaded onto.
I then added the two original 1 TB HDD to the computed to use for photography and media storage. They also showed when booting my computer as a separate RAID 1 array, but were listed as "repair." I went into the RAID BIOS and separated the array. I connected only one of the 1 TB HDD, and the drive was the "E" Drive in my computer, but I was unable to access it. "E: is not accessible. Access is denied." Disk Management showed the drive as DISK 1, but as two partitions: System Reserved 350 MB NTFS Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) and 931.17 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition). I used Diskpart to create a Primary partition and format the disk. That HDD now works fine. Unfortunately I did not backup the data on that HDD, which I would like to have.
I did try the second mirrowed 1 TB HDD on the computer before formatting the first and was able to access all of the data on the HDD.
Now after formatting the first 1 TB HDD, I added the second 1 TB HDD from the original RAID 1 array back onto the computer, wanting to retrieve the data on it. This HDD does not show on My computer and is not assigned a drive letter. However the HDD is listed in Disk Management as DISK 2 and partitioned into System Reserved 350 MB NTFS Healthy ( active, Primary Partition) and 931.17 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition). Looking for retrieving the data on this disk, copying it to another HDD, and then creating one partition on this HDD? How to assign the HDD a drive letter. I would like to format this HDD after copying the data, and have my computer assign it a drive letter so that I can use it.
I'm having a hard time trying to create a partition on the main HDD, in order to perform a Windows 7 installation, since Windows 8 is giving me several compatibility problems, and many software developers (e.g. Adobe Systems) said to me that Windows 8 support is not available since it isn't officialy released yet.
According to Windows 8 "Computer Management" utility (very similar to the Win7 one) the maximum size of available shrink space is up to 86 GB. Nevertheless I desire to create at least a 250 GB partition (HD is 1.5 TB and free space is 620 GB).
I found out on the internet this could be due to MFT files. I followed an old guide, run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, disabled system restore, the pagefile, the kernel memory dump and the hibernation mode. I morover run several instances of 3rd party defrag softwares such as Perfect Disk: I run the SmartPlacement, the defrag, the consolidate free space and the Prep for shrink tools, none of them with a positive result.
Though MFT files seems to be at a right place, around 5 GB from the disk beginning.
HP 15-d005TU -3rd Generation Intel Core i3-3110M Processor (2.4 GHz) -500GB Hard Drive Toshiba MQ01ABF050 -4096MB DDR3 SDRAM -DVD Optical drive hp DVDRAM GU90N -Windows 8.1 64bit
On delivery it had 9 Windows updates installed ( 8, dated Nov 13 and the last one dated 07 Mar 2014, perhaps just before it left the factory). My first priority was to update Windows. A total of 78 updates including the last major Windows 8.1 update 1 akin to a Service Pack - KB2919335 and all this took a lot of time. All updates went on well with no problems.
Now I find that Windows Disk Management lists two OEM recovery partitions D: ( What it was earlier, I did not notice but I presume it was showing one correctly since any abnormality would have caught my attention.)
Diskpart lists all the partitions correctly. And so also bootice. Now what is causing this and how do I fix it?
I find there is a Intel Manageability Firmware Recovery Agent - [URL] .... My own guess is some Intel driver/firmware may be causing it. As I said it is only a guess. I tried the update with it but so far Intel servers could not be reached though my internet connection is OK.
So I've been playing around with FreeNAS on another rig, you install the server on a USB drive and run the server form the flash drive. I've decided to go another rout and not use free nas so I went to format the 2 flash drives I was messing with and there are some partitions I can't remove with disk management, and space missing.
disk 1.jpg
Disk 3 should be 4GB large but I can only find the 943 MB
disk 2.jpg
disk 3.jpg
It doesn't give me any options to change the volumes on Disk 4.
The disk management tool on my windows doesn't move on and hangs at "connecting to virtual disk service" forever:
My HP desktop is new, windows 8.1, hard drive having ample space. I searched the web and tried, but to no avail. Or where can I download a free windows disk management tool to fix the issue?
Disk management won't allow me to extend empty 46GB volume. The windows disk management will not allow me to delete any partitions. Do I need to do an Fdisk ? or use a third party program to do this ?
Before I do this I must create a windows setup disk because I do not have one at the moment , all I have is a Dell usb Restore. would be good if there was a video clip of how to delete the partition.
I have a Western Digital external hard drive. Model WD5000C032 500GB. It's an older device that was working just fine on my Mac (I don't know what OS it was running and do not have access to it any longer). I have brought this HD with me and am now trying to use it on my Windows 8.1 lap top. When I plug it in, the device is not assigned a letter. I can search for it in disk management, but it is uninitialized. I have right clicked on the drive to initialize, and receive an error message "the specific disk is not convertible because the size is less than the minimum size required for GPT disks." I searched and suggestion is downloading and using Partition Wizard. I downloaded the program and opened the wizard, but it does not see my hard drive. The screen shot will display as far as I've gotten.
I was going to reinstalling windows on my computer and i thought put 200gb for windows 8 and and 1300gb can be for windows 7(for gaming), So i install windows 8 and shrink the hard drive size so windows 8 has 200gb. And use windows 7 for gaming but my pc is a bit s#*t and a dont do gaming any more. (only on the ps3).
So can i unshrink or something so i have 1.5tb together for windows 8?
Drive 1 : OS Win 8.1 for general web, office and junk running
Drive 2 : OS Win 8.1 for tweaked hobby work; Audio recording etc
Whilst I wish to not physically disconnect the drives on each boot. I would like to have the alternative drive hidden and not impacted when the other drive is running for the OS.Boot up from Drive 1 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed as D:
Boot up from Drive 2 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed as D:
End aim
Boot up from Drive 1 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed not running or showing on the system and vice versa. Is the online offline function what I need to use or is this going to put the drive offline for the system as a whole.
The program Acronis True Image failed when attempting to clone win 8.1 C drive. The destination disk is now hidden in File Explorer but is present in Disk Management (and in Device Manager). The Disk Management command "Change Drive Letter ..." is grayed out. How can I unhide the drive?
The drive in question appears in attached screen shots as Disk 6 but is missing from Explorer.
Over the last couple days, I built a new PC and installed windows 8.1. Initially I had some issues installing windows, so I unplugged all my drives except the SSD and DVD. I installed windows to my SSD.
Everything works great!
Now I started adding my drives back in 1 at a time. When I plugged my 2nd SSD in, it showed up in BIOS, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. So I booted back into the install CD, it showed up in the disk manager there. Since this was also a blank SSD, I partitioned and formated the drive from the install CD, then exited the installer and booted back to my windows drive.
I have 2 SSD drives working great!
Now to add my 2TB HDD... Same issue, it shows up in BIOS and the install disc, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. This drive does not have a boot partition on it, however, it does have two existing data partitions. They were made from my previous windows 7 system and the option to delete these partitions is grayed out in the install disc menu. I also have some data that I would like to keep on it. I have a USB dock that I can use to read the contents of the disk just fine. Everything is there and in working order.
What is different about Windows 8.1 that is preventing my hard drives from showing up in windows proper? I am reading things about UEFI online, but nothing seems to fit my exact scenario. I will try and post some screen shots when I get back at it.
I have read some threads other info about shrinking the c drive where the os is,but none have ever said that it cannot be shrunken using the windows provided disk management but seems to talk around it?
I would like to add a partition to a drive having the following partitions:
Number Partition Size 1 Windows RE 499 MB 2 EFI System 300 MB 3 MSR 128 MB 4 C: 216 GB 5 Windows RE 450 MB 6 Samsung Image 19 GB 7 Samsung Recovery 1 GB
This should be easy to do with MiniTool Partition Wizard. In essence, resize "C:", add the partition in the unallocated space, assign the drive letter "D" to the new partition, and format it to NTFS.
You will notice that the drive has two Windows RE partitions. This is because I updated to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8 through the Microsoft Store.
I used to have System Reserved on separate partion to C: but on my last fresh re-install, I decided to make C: and System Reserved in one partition. Here's what shows on Disk Management:
My question is, which is better. System Reserved on the same partition with C: or on a separate partition?
I have Asus N550LF, always on boot or when i unplug the charger power management set to high performance which is causing the battery life to decrease ( wear level 7%), since i found out H.P. causes this i always set it to Balanced but its annoying to do it every time i boot up, any way to set it to default?
Why I am not able to choose the underlined letter when hitting alt-x which brings up the quick list of shortcuts? I was able to before and now it no longer allows it. I have to select w/the mouse. No huge deal but want things to be how they were. I 've also tried using Win 8's "refresh" to no avail.
I recover, my recover partition, to a usb 2.0 disc, i try to recover from there, but it only show me the blue screen options, to choose language and keyboard layout, then i choose again the same driver, and same thing again, i can't pass from here, i even try to boot from the usb disc, and same thing.
I am trying to do a clean install of windows 8 on my laptop (Elitebook 8770W) from a USB stick with original MS Windows OEM iso. Once I boot from usb stick, at the setup screen I enter the product key and then choose advanced to do a clean install. I then choose my hard disk partition to install windows but I get stuck here with this error:
"Windows cannot be installed to disk 0 partition 1"
I deleted the partition and choose to install on the unallocated space (150GIG) But still get the same error and when I click on the error this is what I get:
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's Bios"
In bios I have my disk set as Raid and I also have a m-sata Flash cache. If I change raid to AHCI I will be able then to install windows. But if I turn it back to raid after install I will no longer be able to boot I have to be in raid mode to use my m-sat as cache drive.
So here I am stuck not being able to install windows I even downloaded latest intel rapid storage technology drivers and put them on the usb stick with windows setup files. When i got the error I choose to load driver. But even after that I was getting same error and windows would not install on my HDD.
What's the right way to install in this condition (raid)?
Recently, I got a new graphics card for my computer (the card was Galaxy NVIDA GEForce 620). Well, after install some things changed that I do not like:
I can no longer sleep my computer. The #1 thing I liked about Windows 8 was getting to sleep the computer/ wake it up real fast. After I put this card in, the only options I get are Reboot and Shutdown. (And I even had to turn fast startup off, because when I start the computer up with it on, my USB's loose their functionality).
