Shrink the Size of a Drive’s Volume

Shrink the Size of a Drive’s Volume

1. Click the Windows icon in the lower-left corner of the
screen.
2. Right-click the Computer option on the menu.
Make sure that your drives have different names so that you can
easily tell one from another when you’re exploring files.
3. Choose Manage from the context menu to open the
Computer Management window.
4. Select Disk Management in the left column to view the
active drives on your computer.
5. Right-click the drive you want to shrink and choose the
Shrink Volume option from the context menu.
6. The operating system lets you know how much storage
space you can remove from your current drive. Select
that amount and click OK. Your laptop now has a new
partition.
You can shrink volumes only on hard drives, not on optical media.
After a CD-R or DVD-R is burned, that volume is permanent.
Most laptops are supplied with only one partition on their hard
drives. You might want to create a second partition if your laptop
has multiple users and you want them to be able to access files outside their accounts. You can also create a second partition that will
be encrypted for sensitive personal or business information