Shrink Volume - Creating a new partition from an existing logical hard drive space
It's possible to create a new partition from existing hard drive space in Windows 7 through the use of something called the 'Disk Management' console and its Shrink Volume tool. This is particularly useful when you want to install a second operating system; the best example being 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 running on the same physical computer hardware. Virtual PC allows you similar functionality, but not the native OS aspect. As it's best to install 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems on separate hard drive partitions, this tip is handy because you can circumvent re-formatting and reinstalling the original OS data. The OS partition must have enough free space available that it can be split up. As always, be sure to back up your data first in case something goes wrong.
To make a new partition from an existing OS hard drive partition:
Go to the Control Panel and navigate to the 'System and Maintenance' tab, then 'Administrative Tools' and click on 'Computer Management'. There you'll find the 'Disk Management' utility under 'Storage'. 'Disk Management' lists both physical hard drive and the logical drive information on your computer. Physical HDDs are the actual storage devices, logical refers to the drive partitions, always denoted by a drive letter, ie. drive C:, D:, etc..
Right-click on the partition that contains the operating system, and select 'Shrink Volume'. You can now divert some free space from this partition towards a new partition, provided there is enough free space for both. Typically, Windows 7 needs at least 16GB of free hard drive space to install. Enter the desired amount of hard drive space into the 'Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:' prompt, then click 'Shrink'.
From there, right-click on the freshly unallocated hard drive space and select 'New Simple Volume' to create the new partition, then follow the prompt to format the newly created partition using NTFS. Be sure you're not formatting the original operating system partition! Wait for Windows 7/Vista to work its magic, and in a few minutes you'll have a new logical drive partition split away from the original OS partition.
To make a new partition from an existing OS hard drive partition:
Go to the Control Panel and navigate to the 'System and Maintenance' tab, then 'Administrative Tools' and click on 'Computer Management'. There you'll find the 'Disk Management' utility under 'Storage'. 'Disk Management' lists both physical hard drive and the logical drive information on your computer. Physical HDDs are the actual storage devices, logical refers to the drive partitions, always denoted by a drive letter, ie. drive C:, D:, etc..
Right-click on the partition that contains the operating system, and select 'Shrink Volume'. You can now divert some free space from this partition towards a new partition, provided there is enough free space for both. Typically, Windows 7 needs at least 16GB of free hard drive space to install. Enter the desired amount of hard drive space into the 'Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:' prompt, then click 'Shrink'.
From there, right-click on the freshly unallocated hard drive space and select 'New Simple Volume' to create the new partition, then follow the prompt to format the newly created partition using NTFS. Be sure you're not formatting the original operating system partition! Wait for Windows 7/Vista to work its magic, and in a few minutes you'll have a new logical drive partition split away from the original OS partition.
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