No option to shrink partition in Disk Management

Hi,

I've got a question about my Windows 10 Home laptop. I don't use it as much now but I thought about a scenario where I can install another copy of Windows 10 on a new partition (it's a 1tb SSD) to use as testing for Windows Insider builds - I've had a look around on this forum and elsewhere and it seems this would be possible to use the same Win10 license for both installations as it's on the same hardware and also only one copy can be in use at a time, is this correct?

If so, I would like to make a new partition without losing my data, but when I go into Disk Management, although the "Shrink volume" option is available, the dialog box that comes up doesn't let me alter the size of the disk at all - it just stays at 0MB. Is there another way to be able to partition the disk, for free? Ideally I actually want 3 partitions - one for Windows 10, one for Windows 10 Insider builds and another one for my data, like photos, music, etc.

Is this doable?

Thank you!

Hello @alexncfc,

alexncfc said:

I would like to make a new partition without losing my data, but when I go into Disk Management, although the "Shrink volume" option is available, the dialog box that comes up doesn't let me alter the size of the disk at all - it just stays at 0MB. Is there another way to be able to partition the disk, for free?

This should be able to achieve what you want . . .

 Mini Tool Partition Wizard

About Mini Tool Partition Wizard:

Mini Tool provides users with portable partition software to better configure disk and partitions, bringing brand new user experience and overcoming the many shortcomings in Windows Disk Management.

Both 32-bit & 64-bit downloads available.

> Mini Tool Partition Wizard – FREE
> Mini Tool Partition Wizard [ Portable ] - FREE

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I hope this helps.

Paul Black said:

Hello @alexncfc,

This should be able to achieve what you want . . .

 Mini Tool Partition Wizard

> Mini Tool Partition Wizard – FREE
> Mini Tool Partition Wizard [ Portable ] - FREE

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I hope this helps.

Thanks for the super-quick reply! I'll take a look.

A image from disk manager would help there may a reason it won't shrink. Why not use second Windows as a virtual PC a lot simpler

There are certain things that Disk Management just can`t do.

NavyLCDR said:

Hi @alexncfc!

MiniTool Partition Free that @Paul Black linked to is excellent for managing partitions. It's what I use. I also do insider builds on a second partition on my SSD and dual boot, it's just the way that I prefer to do it. There are a couple of other options, each has pros and cons, of course.

You can run Windows insider in a VM, as @Samuria suggested. You may spend some time getting it set up exactly the way you want, but you only have to set up the VM once. After that you can just wipe the virtual disk whenever you want to and do a new install of Windows without having to recreate the VM itself.

Another option is to dual boot with a .VHDX virtual drive. This has the advantage of the insider build residing in a single file within your existing Windows or data partition and it can be wiped out simply by deleting the single file. You can dual boot with the insider build just like it was on it's own partition. Here's a tutorial for that:
Create Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX) at Boot to Native Boot | Windows 11 Forum

Hi @NavyLCDR,

Thanks very much for these suggestions, and also to Samuria above.

I had thought about a Virtual Machine but I would prefer to run it on the actual hardware.

I didn't know about the VHDX thing - it's interesting that you can do that and dual boot with it. I might have a look at that, but I do need to create a new partition anyway because since I got the 1TB drive for this laptop, it's all just been on C: - moving my user files (pics etc) to a separate data partition would be helpful if I need to re-install my main Windows 10, so I think I'll try the MiniTool Partition program and see how that goes!

Thanks

Is you disk gpt if its mbr you have a limit on primary parition so its possible you couldnt load another windows

Samuria said:

Is you disk gpt if its mbr you have a limit on primary parition so its possible you couldnt load another windows

It is GPT, is there anything I need to do?