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I am currently in the process of cloning my HDD to a SSD.

As the HDD (320 GB) is bigger than the SSD (120 GB) it was recommended that the HDD be shrunk to a smaller size than the SSD. Using Windows 7 built in disk management, it is unable to shrink the HDD to anything smaller than 160 GB.

After running defrag, removing restore points, re-running defrag again, installing Defraggler I learnt that the Master File Table (MFT) is located roughly in the middle of the drive hence why it won't shrink to anything less than 160 GB.

Some more specific deltails:

  • Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
  • TrueCrypt encryption is on system drive
Peter Mortensen
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Rob Sloot
  • 79

2 Answers2

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Use a partition manager like Paragon to shrink the volume, then expand it again if needed. It will move the MFT as needed.

user541686
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0

Nothing will budge those vital file system items while the OS is operating. It is possible to get the reserve to move, but not the used MFT.
Many of the partition managers can do that before boot. "Easus partition manager home" (free) version should be able to shrink the volume. That is what I use. It has to be installed, which installs the boot driver thing, then it will tell you to complete the operation it would restart.

You should have a backup of the disk or the data first (as always). I do not know what other difficulty using true crypt would offer.

Psycogeek
  • 9,139