Windows 10/8/7: How to Shrink Volume Using Diskpart Command Line?

Why do you want to shrink volume?

The computer doesn’t have a perfect disk partitioning when it starts to use. The size of all the partitions will not accept as time goes by, even they are perfect at the first time. Thus, you have to resize it till you are satisfied with. Some of them, you want to extend because they are not big enough, while some of them, you would like to shrink to get a good performance.

Sometimes, you need to shrink the partition for creating a new one to store your personal files. Or you may want to shrink one partition to extend another one. Yes, you could shrink a partition in order to get a better use of the whole space.

How to shrink a volume?

To shrink volume, there are many methods. You can use the Windows Disk Management to get an interface performance, or use the Diskpart to shrink volume at the command prompt with syntax. But how to shrink volume with CMD?

To use Diskpart, you need to open the command line prompt first. Click Start, type “cmd” to find the cmd program, right click it and select “Run as Administrator”, or press “WIN+R”, type “cmd” and press Enter. Type “diskpart” to open the diskpart command prompt.

Then, you can type the syntax to shrink volume, like the following steps.

Type: list volume. You should remember the number of the volume you want to shrink.

Then, type select volume n to select the volume you want to shrink.

Type shrink desired=size to shrink the selected volume. And you will shrink volume successfully with Diskpart.

However, you may be warned by a shrink error. Which means you may meet some troubles when you shrink volume.

There may be some unmovable files like the paging file or the shadow copy storage area, which are not automatically relocated and you cannot decrease the allocated space beyond the point where the unmovable files are. So you can only shrink the partition to the unmovable file point. If you need to shrink more space, you need move the unmovable files to anther disk or delete it. If there are number of bad clusters detected, you cannot shrink the partition too. Besides, Diskpart can only shrink/extend volume with NTFS file system, so, if your file system is FAT, the Diskpart shrink cannot use.

Fortunately, AOMEI Partition Assistant 6.6 Edition can replace Diskpart to shrink volume easier, and it can overcome all the troubles we mentioned above.

Alternative to Diskpart - AOMEI Partition Assistant

You can take the advantage of the freeware AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, which can help you shrink volume/partition to the minimum size with the obstruction of the unmovable file with an intuitive GUI. You can operate with mouse-clicking. And, it is totally free. Here you can follow the guidance below:

Step 1. Free download this software, install it to your computer installed Windows 10/8/7, launch it. Right-click the partition/volume you want to shrink, select Shrink Partition.

Step 2. Then, you can shrink volume/partition by dragging the bar or remount the volume. Click OK.

Step 3. Here you can see the pending operations and if it is no problem, click Apply to submit the task.

If you prefer to use command line to shrink volume, you can install AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional on your Windows PC. It supports more advanced features than AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, including Command Line. Here you can learn how to shrink volume with command line of AOMEI Partition Assistant.

1. To use AOMEI partassist.exe, you need to run cmd as administrator. Then, type cd C:\Program Files \AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro Edition 6.6 (cd+ installation directory of AOMEI Partition Assistant), press Enter. Then, type partassist.exe /list and press Enter.

It will turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant command line and list all disk on your computer.

2. Type partassist.exe /list:1 and press Enter. It will choose the disk 1 and list all volumes on the selected disk.

3. Here you can type the command partassist.exe /hd:1 /resize:0 /reduce-left:10240 in the following screenshot, press Enter.

*You can adjust the parameters to make another shrink. For example, if you would like to shrink the specified partition to create an unallocated space on its right side, use “right” to replace “left”.

4. It will move and resize partition at the following window. When the progress reaches 100%, type exit to quit the program.

Notes:

● "/hd" followed by disk number, which starts with 0.

●"/resize" followed by partition number or drive letter, and the partition number starts with 0. If the specified value is drive letter, disk number can be ignored.

● By default, the specified size is in MB, and GB is also available.

Besides, you can use command line to extend partition too. With the command line, you can resize your partition in a simple syntax.