Shrink the volume below the maximum value. Why are the files not compressed by the archiver? Why is "Extend Volume" inactive?

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The times of archivers are gradually coming to an end, and every year, users compress information less and less often.

This is not surprising, when there were hard drives designed for only a few megabytes, it was impossible to do without compressing even ordinary texts, but today you can buy additional memory without special expenses.

Out of habit or because of their worries about excess disk space, some still continue to compress data, but this does not always work. Why are the files not compressed by the archiver? The fact is that there is no point in trying to compress some data at all, since it is impossible.

What files are not compressed by archivers?

Let's start with the fact that data that has previously been processed through an archiver cannot be compressed. The program has completely reduced the possible memory capacity by replacing all duplicate data, so re-archiving does not help.

This method can only work if the second compression is performed using more recent software.

As for music and video files, they don’t need to be compressed at all. Video recordings are compressed by archive codecs by default, so adding them to the archive will not help reduce the amount of memory consumed.

Audio files can be added to the archive for compression, but the maximum that you can “carve out” is 5-7% of the memory; you must admit, because of this, you don’t have to waste time on archiving at all.

It is also better not to archive graphic elements (pictures), but to compress them by editing. For example, you can change the number of colors, because it is not always necessary to transfer several thousand color schemes; sometimes a 256 color palette is enough.

Also, reducing the size of images and changing the format is a great space saver. Everyone knows that PNG files take up much more space than the usual Jpg format.

You can try to compress programs and various databases, but if you received them from official sources, this is unlikely to succeed. The fact is that they are optimized in advance for faster downloading.

But if archivers are not so needed today, why do their developers continue to release updates and even sell software products? It’s not difficult to explain; thanks to archivers, you can conveniently group data, for example, so as not to transfer them over the Internet one at a time.

Also, by archiving information, you can increase its protection, because even in the standard set

During my youth, it was almost the most used function - disks of 7 - 20 GB could not contain all the necessary information. And that’s exactly what compression is for: to free up space on your hard drive. When you compress a file or folder, the data is overwritten using a special Windows algorithm and occupies fewer clusters after the operation. When you access the file in the next session, the system reverses the process before you can see even a bit of the information you need. And this, as you understand, requires time and system resources.

File compression has been a feature of Windows since the advent of Windows. disk cleanup utilities. But since the time of Windows 7, it has migrated into a separate stream: the developers felt that there were fewer problems with the lack of computer space, and compressing a huge number of files greatly slows down the functionality of Windows: when this function was activated, the system compressed all files in a row, which means that there could also be vital parameters that are accessed momentarily during the current session... Nowadays, freeing up space is easy with the help of other utilities that work in a different direction, and/or by running . In the end, any archiver program can do much more than the function described. However, she is there, let’s get to know her.

By the way

The function and approach to compression in Windows 10 has seriously changed and, it seems (for now, at least) for a much better reason. But about this in a separate article.

A couple of paragraphs of theory...

The NTFS file system uses the “ compression unit” in order to determine the degree of partitioning, granularity of the byte range stream, as well as their alignment or grouping into blocks. The size of this very unit depends only on the size of the cluster in the NTFS system. Until the last moment, the following table was used to calculate the cluster size:

As you can see, from a certain point exceptions begin: “native” NTFS compression stops working on volumes and partitions whose cluster size is selected to be more than 4 KB. For sizes from 8 KB compression begins to be used for sparse files. Such files are another strong point of the NTFS file system, which allows applications to create very large files, which, strange as it may sound, can exceed the size of the parent directory. This happens because the lion's share of the contents of such files (and sometimes completely) is filled with zeros or zero chains. However, the file system does not provide logical clusters for such chains. And NTFS creates only a “pointer to where the virtual number of clusters is filled.” What does compression have to do with it? NTFS, when working to compress a file or folder, divides the data stream using the same principle. Moreover, the compression process is individual for each file; the degree of compression and subsequent operations with the file are very dependent on its actual size.

Compressing files and folders

The function is available from the context menu by right-clicking on the desired file/folder. She is here:

We activate the function, compression has begun. After this, you can force Windows to highlight compressed files. This is easy to do with a whole disk. We will find in Windows Explorer list of volumes and also call the context menu with the right mouse:

Compress disks and files. What do you need to know?

Compression is available ONLY for the NTFS file system
If a file is moved from ordinary folders in compressed folder of ANOTHER DISK, it also undergoes a compression procedure
If a file is moved from ordinary folders in compressed folder on the SAME DISK, compression is canceled and the file/folder returns to its original size
Files compressed using NTFS compression cannot be encrypted: duplication of procedures in any form is excluded in Windows, and therefore...
You won't be able to compress an already compressed file either)))
Do not confuse with archiving (in zip, rar, etc.)

Compression. What not to do.

As you may have already realized, Windows compression is not a feature you should mess around with. However, understanding the compression function (at least within the paragraphs at the top of the article) can help you determine the root of the errors that appear. The most typical of them, and this may be the fault compression functions:

There is not enough disk space. This error may occur to you precisely at the moment of copying a file/folder or at the stage of creating a backup copy.
Error copying large files to a compressed folder
Compressed VHD files reduce virtual machine performance

Do not compress the disk with the operating system installed on it! System disk WITH: You cannot undergo this procedure. Most often, device drivers suffer from this, refusing to start a whole set of devices that just seemed to be working. After the compression procedure is completed, the operating system will most likely not boot in the new session. But if - I don’t know what made you - you decide to do it, do not touch at least root directories.

After compression the system does not boot...

If I’m late with my advice, and you’ve already encountered a failure to start the system after compression, know that those few, but extremely important files for booting the system, were compressed. And during system startup, the “de-compression” procedure is not provided. As a result: the system does not start or Windows is constantly restarting. And you will have to work hard.

In such cases, I always use a universal option - this is an external box with a hard drive installed inside, on which a whole bunch of images of Windows boot disks of any model and bit capacity are always ready: from Windows XP to Win10 32 and 64. And I don’t worry about countless disks and flash drives.

Set the BIOS to boot from the drive with the Windows disk inside:

select the language and in the installation window select System Restore:

Editing partitions and volumes helps out in case of thoughtless disk partitioning at the beginning of Windows installation. Any shortcomings made during installation can be easily corrected.

Why do you need to change hard drive partitions?

Due to the large number of programs and games occupying almost all the free space, Windows begins to slow down, and defragmentation of partition C is carried out with errors.

The main reason for changing hard disk partitions is the lack of space on the system partition C.

At this time, up to several hundred gigabytes are empty on partition D, but moving some files to partition D forces you to reconfigure many third-party applications. In this case, it is easier to expand drive C at the expense of D.

How to expand C drive

Expanding drive C is possible using both Windows tools and third-party programs.

Extending the C drive directly in Windows 7

If you want to expand the disk using standard Windows tools, do the following:

By pressing the Win + R buttons, bring up the “Run” window. Enter the command "diskmgmt.msc" and click "OK". The command “diskmgmt.msc” will open the Disk Management utility
Select partition D and in the volume context menu click on “Delete Volume”. Do not rush to edit hidden drives without a volume name, since deleting a partition will destroy all valuable files stored on it. The necessary information should be copied in advance to another disk or removable media. You cannot remove drive C, on which the system itself is installed. After disk D is destroyed, there will be unallocated space in its place.
Select the volume and delete it
Select drive C and in the context menu give the command “Extend volume”.
Set the number of megabytes that will be added to drive C. It will not be possible to exceed the maximum value, since the physical media itself is limited. Click Next.
The size of the previously unmarked area will decrease by this amount.
Drive C will be enlarged. The size of drive D will be reduced by the megabytes given to drive C. Click on a free area of the drive and give the command “Create a simple volume”. When recreating volume D, this partition will be automatically formatted (quick format using Windows tools).
Click on the remaining unallocated area and click on “Create Simple Volume” in the context menu

There is now enough space in C for Windows and your programs to run normally.

If you wish, you can use third-party applications, for example, Acronis Disk Director or Partition Manager. But it should be remembered that in the hands of inexperienced users, alternative programs often become not a “magic wand”, but a means of destroying the user’s files, and only a computer service center will be able to restore your lost data.

Video: Extending a volume using Windows 7 tools

Expanding the C drive when reinstalling Windows 7

When installing Windows, you will not skip the stage of changing disk partitions. During the reinstallation process, the program will ask which partition to install the system in and will suggest redistributing the hard drive space.

There are two types of Windows installations: upgrade and full installation. The update is carried out on top of the existing system, preserves all installed programs, but resets system parameters. Full installation - installation with formatting of the system partition, or installation on another partition of the hard drive. If you want to change hard disk partitions, then you need to choose the second installation type.

If you really need a “clean” installation of Windows, do the following:

Insert the installation DVD or USB flash drive and restart your PC.
To open the BIOS window, press the Del, F2, or Esc key during system startup (the choice of key depends on the computer manufacturer). In the window that opens, use the arrows to select “Boot”.
In the window that opens, use the arrows to select “Boot”
Next, use the arrows to open the “Boot Device Priority” tab and in the list, select the boot device from which you need to boot the system. Close the BIOS and save the changes.
In the list, select the boot device from which you need to boot the system
Wait for the installation program to load into the PC's RAM.
Select the type of Windows reinstallation.
Select full Windows 7 installation
For example, one disk and one partition are taken. Select the drive and click Disk Setup. All your files should be copied to other drives in advance.
Select the drive and click "Disk Setup"
Additional links will appear - click the “Delete” link. A warning about data transfer will appear, click “OK” and delete the partition. Do the same with adjacent sections (D, E, etc.), if there are any.
Click "OK" if your personal files have been copied to other media
After removing existing partitions, you will have an unallocated (unformatted) disk area, which is the full size of the hard drive. To create new sections, click the “Create” link.
Windows 7 Setup will help you create new logical drives
Specify the size of partition C, and create partition D in the same way. Go to partition C and format it. A quick format will be applied (clearing the disk table of contents).
The installer requires you to format partition C

After formatting, Windows will continue to be reinstalled. Section C has been successfully modified.

Video: resizing partitions during reinstallation of Windows 7

Why can't I expand a volume in Windows 7?

A situation where the “Extend volume” option is inactive is possible. For example, we take the extension of the same C drive.

A situation where the “Extend volume” option is inactive is possible

a spanned volume was created as D, which includes, for example, disks D and E. Transfer files from these partitions to other media. Remove this spanned volume;
you forgot to delete all subsequent volumes, including drive D. Expanding the previous volume only works when deleting the next one.

How to delete a volume

You can only add an unallocated partition to a disk, which appears after deleting a volume.

Deleting a volume in Windows 7

To delete a volume:

You will be left with free space the size of this volume, which can now be attached to another partition.

Why can't I delete a partition or volume?

In some cases, removal may be difficult.

The reasons are as follows:

How to remove the swap file

To make volume deletion available, do the following to eliminate the Windows page file:

From the Start menu, go to Control Panel.
From the Start menu, go to Control Panel
Go to the “System” section.
Go to the "System" section
Go to "Advanced system settings".
Click on "Advanced system settings"
In the "System Properties" window, go to the "Advanced" tab and click on the "Options" button in the performance settings. Click this button
In the performance settings window, select the “Advanced” section and click on “Change”. Select the “Advanced” section and click on “Change”
In the virtual memory settings window, uncheck the option to automatically select the paging file size and check the box next to “Without paging file.” Click on the "Set" button. Uncheck the option to automatically select the paging file size and check the box next to “No paging file”
Click "Yes" when prompted to clear the page file.
Answer yes to the request to clear the page file
Close all windows by clicking "OK" and restart your computer.

Go back to Disk Management and try to delete the volume again. Check to see if this volume is connected to a neighboring volume on the same partition.

How to shrink a volume

The disk can also be expanded by compressing it. As a result of compression, free space will be obtained, which can be used to create a new partition or volume.

Features of volume compression in Windows 7 are as follows:

compression works only for primary and secondary partitions, as well as in the NTFS file system. If the partition or volume is formatted in FAT32, move the data from it and reformat (or convert) it to NTFS. To do this, call the disk context menu and click “Format”;
if a partition or volume has many bad sectors, it will not be possible to shrink it;
The page file, hibernation files, and recovery point data present an additional challenge to compacting partitions and volumes. Compression will not proceed beyond the second area of free space, counting from the beginning of the volume.

Shrinking a volume using Disk Management

If you want to shrink a volume using standard Windows tools, then:

Shrinking a volume using the command line

If the volume shrink option in Disk Management is no longer available, use the Windows Command Prompt. It can bypass the inactivity of some actions that are hidden by the Windows graphical shell. The instructions are universal for Windows 7/8.x/10.

Search for the Command Prompt application in Start and run it with administrator rights. Tasks beyond the use of application programs often require administrator privileges in Windows.
Launch the Command Prompt application with administrator rights
Enter "shrink desired=(number in megabytes)" which you want to shrink. The “shrink” command is entered with parameters, and if they are missing, all available content will be compressed.
The “desired” attribute is a variable that corresponds to a value in megabytes

When volume compression is complete, the command line will display a message indicating that the volume was successfully reduced by the specified megabytes. Using the Disk Management application, make sure that there is free space in which you can create a new volume.

Video: Shrinking a volume using the command line

Expanding, compressing, deleting, adding new partitions and volumes using a standard Windows utility is not difficult. The main thing is not to lose valuable data that you have been collecting and creating for many years.

Starting with Vista and 7, the Windows operating system has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of the main partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and don't have enough additional disks. By shrinking the volume, you will free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other necessary partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using the Windows GUI, and for more advanced users we will also describe a method using the command line.

Before you begin, make sure you have backed up all your important data.

Shrink a volume or partition using Disk Management

If you have Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type “disk management” in the search box and press Enter. If you are a Windows 8.x user, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen (or press Win+X) and select Disk Management.

"Disk Management" is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer (hard drives, USB drives, CD/DVDs, etc.)

Select the primary partition you want to compress, right-click on it and select Compress.

As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining available space for compression.

Specify the amount of space you would like to regain and click "Compress". Remember that the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB.

You can use the space freed (or unoccupied) in this way to create a new partition.

Shrink a volume or partition using the command line

To open Command Prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "cmd", right-click cmd.exe in the search results and select "Run as administrator". In Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list volume. This command will display a list of all drives on the computer.

Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, enter select volume 1 and press Enter.

Enter shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.

Now you have two options: first, you can simply enter shrink, and then Windows will shrink all available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume to be compressed. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired=volume_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired=2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value specified in the "Maximum number of reused bytes" line. So with this command you can specify the exact amount of space to be compressed.

If you do everything correctly, after the operation is completed you will see a message:

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: number_in_megabytes

That's all! To shut down DISKPART correctly, enter exit and press Enter.

Things to consider:

When you try to shrink a primary partition or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the area where non-movable files are located (for example, the shadow copy storage area, hibernation, page files, etc.) Let's assume if there is a "first" empty space on the Windows drive and then there are non-movable files followed by a "second" empty space, you will only be able to shrink the partition to the end of the second empty space since there are non-movable files in the middle.
If a large number of bad clusters are detected, the compression will fail.
You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or partitions with the NTFS file system.

Now I want to show you how you can use the unallocated space on your disk and create a new volume or partition using the Disk Management tool or using the Command Prompt.

How to create a new volume or partition through Disk Management

Open the Disk Management tool. To do this, open the Run dialog (Win + R), enter the command diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Right-click on the unallocated space and click Create Simple Volume.

In the Create Simple Volume Wizard window, click Next.

Enter the amount of space you want to use for the new volume (or partition) and click Next.

In the next step, you can change the formatting options, but this is not necessary, especially if you are happy with the default settings. Additionally, you can change the volume label to any name you prefer, but it's better to use something descriptive: for example, "Movies", "Documents", "Backups", etc. You can also enable the option to compress files and folders. When all settings are selected, click Next.

Review your selections. If you want to change anything, click "Back" to return to the previous steps. If you are happy with everything, click "Done".

After this, a new partition should be successfully created on your computer.

How to create a new volume or partition via the command line

Open a command prompt with administrator rights.

Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list disk. This command will list the drives on your PC. It will also help you determine the disk number with unallocated space.

Now enter the command select disk with the volume number and press Enter: for example, select volume 0 .

Advice: you can manually specify the size of the new partition. To do this, contact the team create partition primary need to add size=x(Where x– partition size in megabytes). The entire command will look like this: create partition primary size=1000

Now that the partition has been created, enter the command list volume and press Enter. As a result, you will see a volume (in my case volume 3) with a RAW file system. However, it would be more correct to say that this is a volume without a file system.

Next, you need to format the partition to the NTFS file system. Enter the command format fs=ntfs quick(Where quick– this is an indication that the quick formatting method should be used) and press Enter.

You have just successfully created and formatted a partition. The last thing to do is assign a drive letter to the new partition. This is also a fairly simple task.

Enter the command list volume, note the number of the new partition and enter the command select volume, not forgetting to indicate the section number. For example, in my case the command would look like this: select volume 3 .

Now you have two options to assign a drive letter: you can simply enter the command assign, but then the DiskPart tool will automatically assign one of the available letters to the new partition (this is what is shown in the screenshot below); or you can enter the command assign letter=f, Where f is the drive letter. If you choose the second option, make sure that the letter you want to assign is not already assigned to another drive.

That's all! Everything written above works in Vista, Windows 7 and 8.x.

contemplator

Using Disk Management, you can reduce the size of your hard drive volume to create a new partition.

Windows 7 includes several tools to manage your computer's configuration and various aspects of the operating system. Sometimes it is necessary to reduce the size of a volume - distributed space on a hard drive - to free up space to create another partition. Until recently, this would have required the use of third-party utilities, but with the advent of the built-in Disk Management tool in Windows 7, the need to install special software has disappeared.

Volume compression

First, you need to run Disk Management with administrator rights. Open the Start menu, type “diskmgmt.msc” into the search bar without quotes, right-click the “diskmgmt” link in the search results and select the “Run as Administrator” option from the context menu (Figure A).

Figure A: Run Disk Management with Administrator rights.

The window shown in Fig. will open. B.

Figure B. Disk Management window.

As you can see, my computer has a data recovery partition, a system partition, and a Data partition. It’s better not to touch the system partition, so for example, let’s shrink the “Data (D:)” partition.

Right-click on the partition you want to shrink and select the Shrink Volume option (Figure C).

Figure C: From the context menu, select the Shrink Volume option.

The system will take a few seconds to analyze the disk, and the dialog box shown in Fig. 1 will appear. D.

Figure D. Based on the analysis results, a dialog box appears with general information about the volume.

In this window, you can only change the value in the “Amount of Space to Shrink in MB” field. For example, let's reduce volume “D:” by 5000 MB (5 GB), as shown in Fig. E. When you're ready, click the Compress button.

Figure E: Shrink a 5000 MB volume.

Once the operation is complete, there will be new unallocated space on your hard drive (Figure F). Its actual size will be slightly less than what was indicated during compression, since a small part of this space will be allocated to the Windows file system.

Figure F. New unallocated space.

Using Unallocated Space

Now you need to create a partition on the unallocated space that the operating system can use. This is not at all difficult, but it is done in several stages, so I will talk about creating a new volume in the next article.