Sunday, July 27, 2014

Disk space lost with partitioning (windows 10 - disk management)


It is the second time (since a long time ago) i try on my computer to create a small partition, using the default windows 10 disk management tool. First step is to shrink my C drive, and windows asks me how much i want to shrink it: i put the bare minimum, i.e. 1 MB only. Again, as the first time i tried it long ago, after the process the disk management only shows the original C partition, with 1 MB less of space available, but there is no trace of the new small partition it should have been created. I also ran Partition Magic in order to recover lost partitions, but it did not find anything. I really do not know why this happens, and how to get back my lost space.
Thank you for your help!


edit:As answerers said, that unallocated space was to small to even show up. I then proceeded to shrink my C: drive again, this time by 548 MB, and now i finally see again those 2 "lost" MB in the unallocated section. Cool, but when i try to extend my C: volume back to what it was at the beginning, the maximum amount allowed it 548 MB, not 550. It seems like i cannot touch those 2 MB, even if they are actually showing up now. Pic: dropbox.com/s/sm4qrgpos1vcg0d/Senzanome.png?dl=0


Answer



You have three times reduced the partition, by 1 MB, again by 1 MB, then by 548 MB.
The problem is that Disk Management only allows to re-grow the disk by 548 MB.


This space is not lost, since it is well-indicated in Disk Management when
doing right-click of "Disk 0" followed by Properties, as the Volumes tab reports
"Unallocated space" as being 3 MB (which is one more than it should be).


My own experience is the same: My system disk was originally fully allocated
to the maximum size given by Disk Management, yet "Unallocated space" is reported
as 2 MB.
Unlike you, I don't have the least idea where on the disk is this unallocated space,
but I would guess it is to be found at the end of the disk.


My inescapable conclusion is that Disk Management rounds-down the space.
This means that it is calculating disk space in units larger than one MB,
truncating numbers to this unit-size.


I am unaware of any information on the internals of Disk Management,
so cannot go further than that supposition.


I remark that this idiosyncrasy of Disk Management is good to know.
It means that when resizing partitions, one runs the risk of losing a few
MBs of space here and there (which is not much, considering the size
of modern disks).


You could report this problem to Microsoft via the Feedback Hub, in the (small)
hope of getting an explanation. I don't think that this space can be
retrieved without re-partitioning the entire disk, which is not worth it
for only 3 MB.


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