I spent almost two whole days on figuring out how to shrink the SW_Preload volume (where VISTA lives) on my new ThinkPad x200. It took me so long because:
- ThinkPad's Rescue and Recovery does not allow partition resizing during restoration.
- I don't need Ubuntu yet. If you have decided install Ubuntu, ur life will become easier by using GParted during installation.
- I try to avoid using other 3rd party utilities because their operations may break VISTA and force it to process repairation. In ThinkPad's case, Rescue and Recovery does the job which takes forever!!! In other word, the best method is Shrink Volume in VISTA's Disk Management.
- I want to shrink as much as what free space available. My x200 has 320GB, and SW_Preload takes 280GB <---- FTL!
Method - Step 1:
- Turn OFF pagefile (virtual memory) and System Restore
- Remove pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys
- Remove all windows shadow copies and restore points
After this, all the large unmovable files should be cleaned. And try to shrink now and Disk Management should let shrink more than before.
Method - Step 2:
- Require PerfectDisk 2008, read its best practise guide and section: Shrinking Drives under Windows Vista.
This purpose is, there are still lots of unmovable files beside those in step 1 such as boot files, and those currently in used. That where PerfectDisk's boot time defragment comes to play. Its Aggressive Consolidation Degragment also moves MFT in order to get more free space!
Method - Step 3:
- Require Unlocker to rename or delete folder C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\WMI\RtBackup
If you are unlucky just like me, VISTA will get error "Access Denied" and operation stops. This is because the folder above has default permission to System ONLY not even Admin can touch it. Therefore I needed Unlocker to remove it forcefully. After reboot, same but new folder is created with proper permission. Shrink again and it should be done!!
In my case, if I want SW_Preload drive occupies EXACTLY 20.XGB, shrink it to 20500 in MB :).
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