I have a dell labtop and I'm trying to shrink the C drive, but everytime
I try to manually shrink it through computer management it comes up as
catastrophic error. Any ideas as to how to solve this problem or get
around it without downloading any foreign software?


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tes745

Hi, tes745.

Tell us more about your computer, especially your hard drive(s), so that we
are not working totally in the dark. At a bare minimum, tell us how many
HDDs, their size(s), and the partition arrangement. Probably the most
important information would be about the volume that you are trying to
shrink: How big is it? How full is it? Also tell us exactly which Windows
version; Disk Management has improved with each successive version so we
need to know which one you are using.

Disk Management's Shrink Volume command usually works in just seconds. One
of the things that can cause it to fail is an unmovable file near the end of
the volume, or a volume that is so full that no shrinkage is possible - but
this should not trigger a "catastrophic failure". It should simply fail to
shrink very much, leaving you to try again.

Before shrinking a volume, be sure that it has been defragmented; this
should get the movable files near the front of the volume so that the End
marker can be moved to somewhere after that last file. The built-in
defragger might not be sophisticated enough to allow that degree of file
management; you may need a third-party solution.

What is the exact wording of the "catastrophic error" message? I've never
seen one.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"tes745" wrote in message
...

I have a dell labtop and I'm trying to shrink the C drive, but everytime
I try to manually shrink it through computer management it comes up as
catastrophic error. Any ideas as to how to solve this problem or get
around it without downloading any foreign software?


--
tes745