I am also new to VHDs though I knew about them for a long time,just never felt the need to use them as my desktop is an old low end system.VHDX in a dynamic format is better as it can grow in size as per demand,downside being not compatible with win 7 & lower. Let's consider a scenario.You start with a 40gb VHDX dynamic file & install win 8.1/10 64 bit version in it.After successful installation,updates & reboot it should have ~20gb free space.Now start installing programs in it.As of now this entire VHDX will show up as C drive when booted & anything saved in it will decrease the free space of C drive.By default this means only windows,installed programs/apps & desktop/user documents,pics,download folders etc.Once you have installed all essential programs/apps & confirmed everything is working fine,shut down the VHDX & then copy this VHDX(will require bootable live linux usb assuming there is no installed windows on hdd) which contains your windows install+apps+programs+desktop+user folders.Let's call it base state & copy pasting it will simply be a matter of hdd speeds(at the usual 60MBps when copy pasting within same hdd it should take ~10min). Now let's say you have base state copy 1 in same hdd & base state copy 2 in an external hdd.Next thing to do is to add the path of base state copy 1 to boot loader of PC so that on booting you will have the option to boot from either base state or base state copy 1.As long as boot loader & hdd remains intact even if entire base state is corrupted you can simply switch to base state copy 1.Now if entire hdd &/or boot loader itself is corrupted then you can simply boot using easybcd bootable usb option & again give the path to base state copy 2 in external hdd. The above are based on my readings with zero practical experience so I recommend to confirm it with more experienced members like @T-S There might be some issues with easybcd bootable usb recognizing external hdd connected to a usb 3.0 port(again based on reading of various threads only,nothing with usb 2.0 though at the expense of low speeds).
I've done it numerous times on the active system drive with 100% success using GPartEd. However, my success rate is not your success rate so it might be advantageous to do a trial run on a "junk" system if you can.
First of all how much space you already use up on the 1TB drive? If you already use up 500GB, you're out of luck. You would have easily have gotten this all done in 1 day. Backup your stuff to an external HDD. Reinstall Windows 10 from a bootable USB/CD and delete/create a new partition for the OS and install your Windows 10 and the other partition would be for your backup. That's it.
How is he out of luck? I’d think if he wants a 200GB system drive, he knows he has a system footprint that’s less than 200GB. His asking will 200GB be sufficient seems to say that to me as he asking does that give him room to grow. But even if he has a 500GB system drive footprint, he can still partition his drive into 600GB and 400GB say. How much space you need for your system depends on what the machine’s purpose is. For my old machines, an 80GB system drive is plenty since those computers are primarily low usage: One administers the LAN, one is for business purposes with little to no multimedia involvement and etc. I’d think 200GB would be fine, but you have to analyze your current usage and project future needs and always err on having too much space as opposed to too little. Before you start advising someone to wipe their drive just to rearrange space, you need to know exactly how much space his system actually takes up. He may need to wipe and reinstall, but we can't say that for sure just yet ... too little information.
So explain to me wise one how you going to rearrange the drive 200GB and 800GB IF it's already around 500GB been use up? "600GB and 400GB". Really? LOL. "Before you start advising someone to wipe their drive just to rearrange space, you need to know exactly how much space his system actually takes up." Derp.
Not sure I'm getting what you're asking. But assuming you are going to use a VHDX just move the files. The VHDX will grow and the space on the real partition will increase at the same time. Seem pretty simple to me.
Here’s the feedback for those who have shown interest. Today I found enough courage to implement the proposed creation of the new partition. These are the results. Firstly, there’s nothing to it, it all went fast and smoothly with the system in operation as per theory. Not even asked to reboot. So far no adverse effects noticed. But Starting with one disc of 941 GB, of which only 48 GB were taken, it only allowed me to create a maximum of 463 GB for the new partition, keeping 478 GB for the system partition. While I’m not sure of the reason, I suspect it’s because some (spread out) items on the system partition can’t be moved from their position. So while I couldn’t get the lion’s share of the space for my data as I wanted, 463 GB is still useful for storing stuff off the system partition.
The stock disk management can't do miracles if you have inamovable fs elements, you need to use acronis, paragon, easus, that very likely will do the job offline
GParted is a great tool, and it's free and open source which are both great things. But being the best is another matter...
Possibly the page file. You may have better luck with having it temporarily turned off, or doing the resize offline.
This seems easy to do, and thus worth trying, but is it also without risk? Specifically: If I turn the pagefile off (reboot) and then shrink the system partition online, what happens when I turn the pagefile on again afterwards? Will the system recreate it at a more convenient new spot in the reduced system partition without adverse effects, or is there some risk in the operation?
Hello @ Katzenfruend - I have a strong suspicion that you cannot shrink the Windows C: system partition as far as you would like because of your system restore points. For some reason Windows likes to stick them right out in the middle of the C: partition. What I recommend is this: 1.) Right-click and open the Command Prompt as Administrator. Then enter "sfc /scannow" to check for any missing/corrupted system files. You should get the response "Windows did not find any integrity violations". If this is what you see, proceed to step #2. If problems are found, DO NOT continue until you have fixed them! 2.) Go to Control Panel > All > Recovery, then select "Configure System Restore". In the new panel that appears, click "Configure", and on the next panel click "Delete". Doing this will delete all of your current system restore points. DO NOT do this unless sfc /scannow reports "No integrity violations" - you have been warned - twice! 3.) Now open Disk Management and shrink Windows C: to 200GB or whatever you feel is necessary. After doing this, remember to go back into System Restore and create a new restore point.
Turning off the pagefile does nothing. @ John Sutherland My system files were OK. And yes, you were right, it was the System Restore in the way, impeding further reduction of the size of the system partition. So I followed your instructions, deleted the restore points and it did allow me to reduce the C partition to 200 GB. I then created a new restore point and it seemed to go thru. However Current usage of the restore facility (with max set to almost 20 GB) was shown as only about 5 MB (yes, MB). What’s more, I tried rebooting a couple of times, and the size kept increasing each time and has now reached 26 MB. It seems to me, we may have violated the system’s requirements for the Restore facility to function properly. And I don’t know if these restore points are of any use. Of course, I dare not try them. Fortunately my system files continue to be OK. Any suggestions how to deal with the problem?
Hello @ Katzenfreund - OK, I should have remembered this since I've previously done it myself, my fault. The amount of disk space reserved for use by system restore is based on a fixed percentage of the total disk space used by C: partition. So if you shrink the size of the C: partition by a large amount, the amount reserved for system restore will shrink dramatically as well. What need to do is go to Control Panel > All > Recovery, then select "Configure System Restore". On the next panel that appears, click "Configure". Then on the next panel use the slider to set a new percentage of disk space to be reserved for system restore points. With C: reduced to 200GB, try using 5-6% for system restore, giving you 10-12GB disk space available. Then click "Apply". If you're concerned about your old restore points being unusable due to the low amount of disk space available at the time they were created, repeat the process of using sfc /scannow to verify there are no integrity violations, then delete all of the old system restore points and create a new one.