I have 13.1 GB of unallocated space before my main partition and guess what: Windows won't allow me to expand to it. I know how most of the stuff works and it's because there are files and important boot files at the beginning of the partition.
I am willing to use Easeus Partition Master 9.0.0 Server edition to resize my main partition and gain that additional 13 GB of additional space.
Last time I did that was a few years ago and I remember the operation completed succesfully but there were problems like security permissions issues and some other small issues after booting back to my Windows installation (probbly Vista).
So: How safe is it to take that additional 13 gb of space BEFORE my partition and add it to the main partition using Easeus partition master? Will it "BLOW UP" my Windows 7 installation?
Edit: What about GUIDs and saved file locations on the partition(s)/disk(s)? Will windows complain? I remember that some Windows components index files by their location on the disk/partition or am I wrong? Won't that be a problem in Windows 7?
Best Answer
Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8 computes partition identifier as 32-bit disk signature (found in MBR) + 64-bit partition offset (in bytes, from the start of the disk).
Partition identifier of Windows System Root Partition is stored in BCD (\Boot\BCD registry hive and \Boot\BCD.LOG registry log) and also in mount manager database (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices), physically stored in \Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM and \Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM.LOG.
So partition identifier of disk C: will change after your manipulations. Usually Windows is able to repair itself at boot time, but if it won't, you can fix both references using Emergency Boot CD, Mount & Boot Center: http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/