4

I am trying to shrink a NTFS partition on which, currently, Win10 is installed. The hard disk is a SSD. Disk management utility is not allowing me to shrink even a bit. It shows the amount of shrink available is 0 MB.

I understand from the output that due to immovable objects of Windows at the end of my partition, I cannot shrink further. I went through the following question and tried everything to get rid of immovable objects in my partition.

How to shrink Windows 7 boot partition with unmovable files

I disabled pagefile, hibernation, and system restore. I even deleted temporary files and ran disk fragmentation multiple times but this utility doesn't allow me to shrink.

I have an installation of Ubuntu 14.04 on my second hard disk (HDD). I gave up on Disk Management tool and thought of giving GParted software a try. I ran it inside that Ubuntu. Unfortunately, it is also not allowing me to shrink. GParted gives the following warning:

Unable to read the contents of this file system!
Because of this some operations may be unavailable.
The cause might be a missing software package.
The following list of software packages is required for ntfs file
system support:  ntfsprogs / ntfs-3g.

It seems that GParted is missing some package so I installed the ntfs-3g (which contains ntfsprogs), but this also did not help remove the error. I tried

ntfsfix /dev/sda4

It could not identify any issues. So, I referenced to following thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1244058, and ran the command

sudo ntfsresize --info --force --no-progress-bar /dev/sda4

It showed the following output:

ntfsresize v2013.1.13AR.1 (libntfs-3g)
Device name        : /dev/sda4
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size       : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 248417088000 bytes (248418 MB)
Current device size: 248417091584 bytes (248418 MB)
Checking filesystem consistency ...
Accounting clusters ...
Cluster accounting failed at 8553265 (0x828331): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553266 (0x828332): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553267 (0x828333): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553268 (0x828334): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553269 (0x828335): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553270 (0x828336): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553271 (0x828337): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553272 (0x828338): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553273 (0x828339): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Cluster accounting failed at 8553274 (0x82833a): extra cluster in $Bitmap
Filesystem check failed! Totally 2878 cluster accounting mismatches.
ERROR: NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!
The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was
and will be made to NTFS by this software until it gets repaired.

So, I went to Windows back and ran

chkdsk /f /r

and rebooted twice hoping that problem would have been resolved. chkdsk does not find any problem. I also checked for any errors using the "check" option under "Error checking" section of Properties of my partition. Nothing helped. ntfsresize still considers my NTFS partition as inconsistent. I don't know what to do next. I just want to shrink my NTFS partition and install another OS on it. Also, I want to avoid deleting the partition altogether. Any sort of help will be appreciated.

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
6

I was having the identical problem. The problem seems to be that it's necessary to specify which disk to check:

chkdsk C: /f /r

This fixed the problem. Or possibly it was the fact that I had also tried other arguments such as

chkdsk C: /scan
chkdsk C: /spotfix

which successfully ran without rebooting. Use

help chkdsk

to see other options.

Improve this answer
1
  • Yes, and diskpart will show you what driver letter is currently assigned to each volume (and assign a drive letter if necessary). In my case ntfsresize was showing the same cluster accounting errors, and diskpart was showing the partition type as RAW instead of NTFS. Fixed by running chkdsk [d:] /f /r
    – dougwoodrow
    Commented Jan 20, 2020 at 9:38
0

Run free Paragon Partition Manager 17 CE (Community Edition) in Windows

I had the same problem and so in Windows I tried chkdsk C: /f /r and chkdsk /f and in both attempts restarted twice. But still same error from GParted log output, when then attempting to resize partition with GParted in Linux similar to the original poster question asker here.

So instead I downloaded and installed Paragon Partition Manager 17 CE in Windows 10 and was able to resize the partition from within the app and after doing so, the effect was immediate, no restart needed.

Before I attempted to resize using Linux GParted and then Partition Manager on Windows, I had turned off virtual memory, hibernation and system restore as these facilities use the end of the Windows volume. Turning them off avoided any obstacle of immovable files.

No incentive, referral or affiliation benefit to me with suggesting this software.

Improve this answer
0

I too was having the identical problem. ntfsresize, ntfsfix, making sure ntfs3g is available to GParted, running chkdsk with all sorts of options on Windows (which is on the same drive I'm trying to fix) and rebooting countless times, none of it helped. Until I decided to boot up into a Windows Recovery Environment on an external drive. There seems to be a significant difference between using chkdsk from Windows installed on the same drive you're trying to fix and using chkdsk from an external drive. The latter can detect and fix problems the former can't.

Steps:

  1. Install Windows Recovery Environment on an external drive or USB. You can follow the official guide. You can uncheck the Back up system files to the recovery drive option, since that is needed to be able to reinstall Windows and that's not what we are doing here. Creating a recovery environment on some drives will fail. Even though the guide says you'll need a drive that's at least 16 GB, creating a recovery environment failed for both of the two 16 GB USB drives I tried, without an explanation. It only worked on a 256 GB external SSD connected via USB, and it set up a 31,5 GB partition.

  2. Boot up the recovery environment. Select Recovery Tools > Command Prompt.

  3. Run diskpart to enter into diskpart. Run list volumes to see available drives. Note the drive letter for the drive you want to fix. Ctrl-C to get out of diskpart.

  4. Run chkdsk /f C: substituting your drive's letter for 'C'.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .