# Windows Desktop Partition Question



## HalfEatenPie (Dec 16, 2014)

Alright!  Since most of you guys all work in IT I figured I'd ask around on some easy solutions for this.

I'm moving a client from his Desktop computer to a Laptop because he'll be travelling soon.  Lets say I have a hard drive (Windows 7, so NTFS partition and all that) with 2 partitions. One partition is 300 GB big, the other is about 500 GB big.  In the 300 GB Partition, only about 100 GB of it is actually used.  In the 500 GB partition only about 150 GB of space is used.  

Lets say I want to decrease the size of that 300 GB partition to around 200 GB size and fit it onto a 240 GB SSD.  What would be the best way to go about it?

I'm trying something right now which I think will work but I'd like to ask to see if anyone else has any better solution.  

So... ideas to make this easier?


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## comXyz (Dec 16, 2014)

I always use it http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

Free but good, and haven't had any problem so far


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## KuJoe (Dec 16, 2014)

+1 for Partition Wizard. I have it on all of my Windows installs and it's amazing.


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## k0nsl (Dec 16, 2014)

Yup, as said above MiniTool PW8 does the job nicely  

It's very user-friendly:


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## splitice (Dec 16, 2014)

Can't you just use the Disk Management snap in?


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## comXyz (Dec 16, 2014)

@splitice I don't trust it.


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## KuJoe (Dec 16, 2014)

splitice said:


> Can't you just use the Disk Management snap in?


Disk Management is fine for expanding drives but when it comes to shrinking drives it's very hit or miss, and by miss I mean restoring the partition from backups. I think I've successfully shrunk a partition one or two times with it and they weren't a system partition. I've had 100% success with Partition Wizard for any and all drives I've thrown at it.

Another option worth looking into if you want something more "enterprise" (with a million more features than you'll probably ever need) is Paragon. We use it at work and it's a lot better than Disk Management but not as good as Partition Wizard.


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## splitice (Dec 16, 2014)

Eek, Ive shrunk and grown my partition on many occasions (different jobs requiring Linux etc where a VM wouldn't suffice e.g. for GPU access).

Good to know.


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## mikho (Dec 16, 2014)

Drive snapshot is also a handy tool that I've used more then a few times.


http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/


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## MartinD (Dec 16, 2014)

Worth mentioning that I have never yet managed to transfer a 'system drive's to a new driver successfully. I've always ended up having to reinstall. Windows 7 doesn't like it for some reason.


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## mikho (Dec 16, 2014)

MartinD said:


> Worth mentioning that I have never yet managed to transfer a 'system drive's to a new driver successfully. I've always ended up having to reinstall. Windows 7 doesn't like it for some reason.



Worth mentioning, I've done it more then once.


It is tricky and could mean multiple tries with different software and/or settings.


The big decision is the estimate the time it will take to move the system compared to do a complete reinstall with config of all software.


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## HalfEatenPie (Dec 16, 2014)

splitice said:


> Can't you just use the Disk Management snap in?


haha that was actually what I'm doing right now.

Although the software @, @KuJoe, and @k0nsl seem to recommend suggest it would be better.



MartinD said:


> Worth mentioning that I have never yet managed to transfer a 'system drive's to a new driver successfully. I've always ended up having to reinstall. Windows 7 doesn't like it for some reason.


I did an entire driver clone with pmagic/CloneZilla (Went from 64GB SSD to a 128 GB SSD) and it went through without a hitch!  Granted that was an entire drive move (small to large) whereas what I'm doing now is partition only and large to small driver.  Kinda puts a stick in everything.


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## pcan (Dec 16, 2014)

I use the free disk migration software from Intel web site. It needs a Intel SSD target, and is basically Acronis True Image with some limitations. 100+ Windows 7 systems migrated to SSD successfully (with partition reduction/resize), all of them with MBR disks less than 2Tb in size. I never tried with GPT disks. For Linux systems, I use Clonezilla.


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## HalfEatenPie (Dec 16, 2014)

pcan said:


> I use the free disk migration software from Intel web site. It needs a Intel SSD target, and is basically Acronis True Image with some limitations. 100+ Windows 7 systems migrated to SSD successfully (with partition reduction/resize), all of them with MBR disks less than 2Tb in size. I never tried with GPT disks. For Linux systems, I use Clonezilla.


Haha.  I guess it doesn't help it's not an Intel SSD.


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## mikho (Dec 17, 2014)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Haha. I guess it doesn't help it's not an Intel SSD.


samsung has a similar tool if not mistaken


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## vRozenSch00n (Dec 17, 2014)

I use MiniTool PW8 too and aomei from aomeitech.com to create Windows2Go


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## bauhaus (Dec 17, 2014)

MartinD said:


> Worth mentioning that I have never yet managed to transfer a 'system drive's to a new driver successfully. I've always ended up having to reinstall. Windows 7 doesn't like it for some reason.


Because Windows 7/8 are tied up to the bios or motherboard specific vendor. Even if you swap motherboards from the same vendor it is a driver nightmare, usually Windows will partially boot

or not boot at all.

@HalfEatenPie good luck trying to boot that windows. As MartinD says, I always ended up

reinstalling the system.


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## William (Dec 17, 2014)

I was able to migrate across the same socket (1150) and different mainboards with a single Win 8 installation (both with internal and external GPU) - 7 and earlier are far worse.


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## vRozenSch00n (Dec 17, 2014)

My partition configuration is as follows:

partition 1 = Wheezy (loaded with Windows 8 boot loader via EasyBCD)

partition 2 = swap

partition 3 = Vista (without a drive name loaded with Windows 8 boot loader via EasyBCD)

partition 4 = Boot loader + VHD files containing Win 7, Win 8 + wmc, Win 8.1, Server 2012

After installing each OS in a VHD container and updating them, I make a copy of each in another drive. This way I can play around with those OS and if I messed up I just have to delete the container and replace it with a fresh copy.

I haven't been able to load Vista and XP directly from a VHD container, as they missed some drivers for 64bit machine.


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## HalfEatenPie (Dec 17, 2014)

bauhaus said:


> Because Windows 7/8 are tied up to the bios or motherboard specific vendor. Even if you swap motherboards from the same vendor it is a driver nightmare, usually Windows will partially boot
> 
> or not boot at all.
> 
> ...


Um... everything works fine?


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## vRozenSch00n (Dec 17, 2014)

What makes harder to migrate windows 7/8 is when you are using UEFI mode when you first install the OS. I usually stick with legacy mode and MBR partition.


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## bauhaus (Dec 17, 2014)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Um... everything works fine?


Not always, sometimes you need to reinstall some drivers and sometimes don't.


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## HalfEatenPie (Dec 17, 2014)

bauhaus said:


> Not always, sometimes you need to reinstall some drivers and sometimes don't.


Oh what I meant was that everything went fine without a hitch.

Even without reinstalling drivers.

For this specific task I was moving from a desktop to a laptop, so of course driver installation was required.


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