disk-encryptionpartitioningwindows 7
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
My laptop hard drive is encrypted. It seems like partition tool like Partition Wizard or Partition Master can't recognize the partition format, as it only display "unknown" or "other" in the format field. Windows Disk Management can only shrink the OS partition to ~250GB in my case, however I want to shrink it to 100GB or 150GB. Does the community know any way to shrink the OS partition to 100GB on a encrypted hard drive?
I've used GParted for ages and have never had a problem, using the LiveCD edition to be specific. As for comparing it to Partition Magic, I'd say GParted has the upper hand. There is a huge community behind it for support since it's open source, and it supports a multitude of filesystems. Partition Magic is also kind of old, it's last release was 5 years ago, about when GParted had it's first release, so it's safe to say GParted is more up to date. It has handled my 1TB drives with ease, performing more than 20 operations in a single reboot sometimes.
For partitioning NTFS I'd strongly recommend reading their guides. Since you're using Vista, The How-To Geek's guide is also essential reading.
GParted is a great tool ever multi-booter should have in their toolbox.
No, this is incorrect : You can only shrink a partition until some file at the end of the partition blocks you.
For example, if a file occupies sector number x, then you can only shrink the partition down to x sectors, no matter even if all the sectors below x are free.
You can use defragmentation software to move some of the files allocated at the end toward the begining of the partition.
However, if the partition in question is the system, Windows has unmovable system files that it likes to allocate at the end of the partition. Such files will block any attempt to shrink the partition, so that the only way left to shrink will be to reinstall Windows.
For example, here is the analyze of my disk C by Smart Defrag.
The black rectangles denote unmovable system files:
Best Answer
The OS is not affected by full-disk encryption (it's decrypted on the fly before OS loads, and the partitions on the system-disk are contained within the full-disk encryption volume), so that's not the problem. You just need to do a proper defrag with consolidation to be able to shrink the partition more. Use "defrag c: /x /w", or MyDefrag's consolidation profile. However you might still need a more advanced tool like PerfectDisc if there are unmovable NTFS or system files towards the end of the of the partition, then use offline defragmentation to move those files on reboot.