Windows 7 Issues shrinking volume in Device Manager...

[Xcellerator]

Hi, this is my first post, because I really cannot work out what is going on!
I have a recently bought 500GB external hard drive (NTFS) which I want to partition to have a 100GB partition formatted to either FAT32 or Mac Extended Journaled.
I have 228gb free on the drive, but when I go to Shrink Volume in Disk Management, it says I only have 342mb available?!

I've tried de fragmenting the drive, but that doesn't seem to help... There isn't any software left that came with the HDD, so it can't be that...

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[Saltgrass]

Could you explain your drive setup, or take a picture (with the snipping tool) of the disk management window and attach using the paperclip?

If you only have 228 GB free, what is on the rest of the drive?

 

[cliffordcooley]

I don't understand why Windows would not be working for you, I've not had any issues with Disk Management. I do know if there is unmovable data written to the disk, the partition cannot shrink past this data. Therefor your issue could be unmovable data at the end of the disk.

There is a good Free-ware application that I use instead of Disk Management. This application also comes in the form of a BootCD.
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition

Saltgrass is correct, more information would let us assist you better.

 

[zvit]

A 500GB disk will only give you about 465GB. (Math issues). If you say you have 342GB (you said MB but I assume you meant GB) available, are you talking about free space or capacity?

 

[patcooke]

You may find that the problem is related to the limitations of the inbuilt partition manager dealing with the location of free space. Try a copy of easeus partition manager, home edition free from here:

Free Download Magic Partition Manager freeware: EaseUS Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy and Partition Recovery Software.