Reduce the size of a current partition (sufficient) to enable dual booting and additional features
Reduce the size of a current partition (sufficient) to enable dual booting and additional features
Attempting to configure the 2016 Razer laptop for dual boot involves balancing storage needs. I aim to allocate roughly 100GB of the 512GB SSD for the Linux partition while keeping data quick for my work. Unfortunately, I’m only able to reduce the C: drive by about 44GB even though 372GB remains free. Tools like DiskView.exe and WinDirStat help visualize fragmentation, but they don’t clearly point out what’s restricting my space. There seems to be no straightforward way to further shrink the partition without erasing everything and starting fresh.
Fedora should automatically create partitions. Just keep the drive clean by defragmenting any fragmented areas. (Reminder, Windows often creates oversized partitions, which is likely why you're having trouble.)
You can manage it using Windows Disk Management. However, Windows often arranges files on partitions to conserve space. @Vernw3 has the right point. I’ve done this before without third-party tools. It seems you need to turn off the pagefile and hibernation features. Defragment the drive, then run Windows Disk Cleanup (selecting 'clean up system files' is important), and ideally use a third-party utility like CCleaner. There could be additional files to remove before shrinking the volume—searching online should help you find a full list.
I’ll suggest Piriform’s tools to anyone. Defraggler works great. When used with WinDirStat, it should help tidy up the system. I’m curious if this affects available space for new partitions. Based on what I understand, I’ll stick with GParted-Live later when I feel more confident managing the system. I’m leaning toward following the general advice in the thread, doing a cleanup, and checking if defraggling helps. I’ll share my findings soon.
You can't just repair and tidy up. You need to turn off hibernation and the pgaefile. The hibersfil.sys (hibernation) and pagefile.sys (pafefile) in the root folder of your C drive are usually hidden, but they’re located at the end of the partition. These files take up space that could be used for shrinking. Look up instructions on how to disable both so you can remove them. Be sure to turn them back on once the partition is shrunk, as they improve system performance and boot times.