Most Windows 10 Users complain that they cannot shrink a Volume Button often when they tried to shrink some file. They said they receive the following notification, “you can’t shrink a volume beyond the partition where any unmovable files are located”, whenever trying to use the Shrink option. If you are facing the same issue and looking for a solution of cannot shrink a volume, then you are in the right place.
Today we will talk about how to fix this shrink volume error easily. We will discuss two individual methods, both of them will work fine for you.
How Cannot Shrink a Volume Error look like?
How we came to know that, Shrink Volume is not working. There can three symptoms of this Shrink Volume error, which are:
Shrink Volume is Greyed Out. In this case, you will be unable to click the shrink volume button because it will be greyed out. There are two places where you might face a greyed-out shrink button. The first place is, where you right-click on the partition to click on the Shrink Volume button, but the Shrink volume button is greyed out. The second place is, where you already start the shrinking window but Shrink Volume is not available and greyed out.
Not Enough Space Error. In this case, you will get a notification of not enough space even though there is enough space in reality. This means a wrong error notification saying “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation” will appear on your screen.
Available Shrink Space is much less than Free Space. This is the third way you can face Cannot Shrink a Volume error on your PC. It happens when you check to shrink the partition before, you may have found enough free space for the partition. But, when you start the shrinking window, you see that the size of available shrink space is smaller than that of free space you checked before.
Now, we know how you can face this error on your computer. So, let’s talk about How to fix Cannot Shrink a Volume Error.
How To Fix Cannot Shrink A Volume
Before shrinking the partitions always check for the space available on your disk to avoid the “not enough space” error when manually resizing/shrinking the partitions. If you have enough space but still facing the issue, here is how you can solve this error:
Solution# 1: Disable the unmovable files
The one reason why Windows won’t allow you to shrink a volume is that there are many immovable files of a system at the end of Volume. These immovable files can be Hibernation files, Page files, and system protection files. These files are unable to automatically move by Disk-Management Tool, so you have to manually perform this task of disabling them.
Also, keep in mind that you have to temporarily disable this hibernation, paging, and protection/restoration files. After you are done with disabling these files, restart your PC, and try again to shrink the volume.
Step No. 1: Disable Hibernation.
- Click on Start option available at your Windows Screen.
- Type “cmd“, right-click on Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator. It will open the Run dialog box.
- In the dialog box, enter command “exe /hibernate off“, and then click on Enter.
This will temporarily disable the Hibernation files.
Step No. 2: Disable the System Protection.
- Click on Start option on your screen.
- Open the system Restore by typing it in the search box.
- Then on the new screen which will open up after the last step, click on Create a restore point.
- You will see a System Protection tab, here click on the option of Configure.
- You will find a Restore Settings option, Under it a Disable system protection option os available, select it and then click on Apply.
Alternative way to Disable System Protection
- In this, you would have to Launch the systempropertiesprotection.exe from the Run dialog.
- Then select the system drive and here click on the “Configure” option.
- Click on “Disable system protection” and select OK to disable system restore.
Step No. 3: Disable paging file.
- Launch the systempropertiesadvanced.exe from the Run dialog box on your PC.
- Select “Advanced” tab by clicking on it. Click “Settings” available under Performance option.
- Click on the Advanced tab, then click on the option of “Change”.
- Here, select “No paging file”, and then click on “Set” to end the process.
Step No. 3: try Disabling the kernel memory dump:
How to disable Memory Dump ?
- Launch the systempropertiesadvanced.exe from the Run dialog box on your PC.
- Select “Advanced” tab by clicking on it. Click “Settings” available under Performance option.
- Click on the Advanced tab, then click “Settings” button located under “Startup and Recovery“.
- Change the drop-down menu under “Write debugging information” to “None“
Once done with all these steps, restart your PC and try again to Shrink the Volume to check problem is solved or not. If still, the error is persisting, try the next method mentioned below.
Solution# 2: Defragment and Check Disk Error to Fix Windows Unable to Shrink Volume
Defragment and To Check Disk Error is another method to Fix Cannot Shrink a Volume in Windows 10, 8, and 7. Follow the steps here correctly to gain exact results. Also, for this step, you have to log into your PC with the Administrator account.
Step No. 1: Check and fix disk file system errors
Always check for Bad cluster numbers before shrinking the partition. Because, keep in mind that if the dynamic bad-cluster remapping detected too much of a bad cluster, you’ll be unable to shrink the partition.
- Go to the driver or folder which is not shrinking. Right-click on that specific drive or partition. Then select “Properties” option.
- Open the Tools tab. Here, “Error checking” is an option, click on the Check button under it.
Defragment Hard Drive Partition:
- Click the “Start” option. Here, select the “File Explorer”.
- Now expand This PC window on the left pane of screen. Right-click on the “Local Disk (C:)”or any other partition which you are unable to shrink.
- Open the Tools Tab and click on the“Properties”. Here, click on the “Optimize”.
- You will see a defragment drive section under this Optimize Section..
- Here, select the partition which is not shrinking, in my case it is C driver so I select the system drive (C) box on the Optimize Drives box, And click “Optimize”.
Now, wait until the process of defragmenting is complete. And then check the percentage of fragmented files in the drive section.
Solution# 3: By Using an Alternative Volume Shrink Tool
using a third-party shrinking tool to fix the Cannot Shrink A Volume Error is another way. There are multiple tools you can download on Your PC and run them to fix this error. Mini Tool Partition Wizard and EaseUS Partition Management Tool are examples of these shrinking tools. You can download these tools from the below-mentioned links:
EaseUs Partition Tool Free Download
MiniTool Partition Wizard Tool Free Download
These two tools will automatically fix the Cannot Shrink a Volume Error on Your PC or will guide you at every step.
If you have any queries, kindly let us know in the comment section below.
