I'm trying to create a partition so I can instal the new Windows 7 Beta as a dual boot OS. I have a 140 GB Hard Drive with a 12 GB partition. I have 77 GB free on the hard drive and would like to make a 16 GB partition for the Windows 7 OS, but when I use the Partition Tool in the Disk Management it says I can only Shrink the HD by 8 GB. Anyone know whats going on and what I can do to fix it? Thanks.

Try defragmenting the hard drive. WinSimple Software

"I have 77 GB free on the hard drive and would like to make a 16 GB partition" Is that 77GB unallocated or partitioned and formatted? What type of partition is it? Logical drive in an extended partition? Primary? What?

"Is that 77GB unallocated or partitioned and formatted? What type of partition is it? Logical drive in an extended partition? Primary? What?" I'm not quite sure what you mean... I'll try to explain it better. I've got a 140 GB Hard Drive. On it I have a 12 GB Partition that is my Vista OS and Restore. Of the remaining 137 GB, 77 GB is free. I want to take 16-20 of this 77 GB and make a second partition so I can instal Windows 7 as a Dual Boot. In the Disk Management tool of Vista, my Hard Drive is listed as: C: 137.37 GB NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). The Partition with my Vista OS is listed as: PRESARIO_RP (D:) 11.67 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition). Now after Defragmenting my C: I now have only 1526 MG available to Shrink from C:. Ugh, I just dont know what to do.

If you have 77 Gbs free , or unallocated space to give its correct term, then why do you need to shrink drive C: What you say you have and what to disk Management says you have is different. You say you only have a 12 gb partition leaving 77 Gbs Free. Disk Management says you C: drive is 137.37 Gbs and Drive D: 11.67 Gbs. that accounts for all of your 140 Gbs. It's best to use to correct terminology as it avoids confusion. Free space is space that is partitioned and formatted but is not being used by any data. Unallocated space is space that is neither partitioned or formatted. To create another partition you need unallocated space. Stuart

http://www./disk-copy/

140GB is an odd size. I haven't seen any hard drive come with that capacity. Sure that drive isn't 160GB? By your own numbers you account for more than 140GB (137 + 12= 149). BTW, you have TWO primary partitions. I have NO experience at all with Vista, which is the first Microsoft OS to have any native software that can re size partitions. That said I will speculate that you may have more files on the C partition than you think. Search for hidden system files. In WinXP those are not shown by default. Additionally the count may not be counting any System Restore files, hibernation files or the swap file.