this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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PC Master Race

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There seems to be plenty of free space on the SSD but there are unmovable files. So I deleted pagefiles etc, which increased available shrink space from 34000ish MB to 79000ish MB before it somehow decreased back to 58459 MB. GParted Live on USB (with laptop safe boot option disabled) did not work, so I am wondering if there's a way to locate and delete the unmovable $DATA file in question. Besides, can y'all recommend some decent software that address this issue please? Thanks in advance :D

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Try aomei partition manager. Solved all my partition related issues on windows

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

yup can confirm aomei partition assistant (free version) works smoothly on my machine

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks! I'll give it a try

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should be able to remove that file (and recreate it later). More info here: https://superuser.com/questions/819901/dangers-of-deleting-c-extend-usnjrnljdata#819976

I’ve run into this before, it’s mainly that windows is bad at identifying “unmovable” files. Just delete it as described in that link, try the shrink again, and recreate after.

Usual caveats apply: no guarantees, make sure there’s backups or no critical info on the system, if this messes up your system it’s on you, etc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Tysm! It works and rn i have 77.5 ish G free shrink space! I'll try to see if $Mft::$DATA can be removed without messing up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That one can’t be removed but it looks like you can manually defragment specific files with the “contig” utility as described here: https://notes.ponderworthy.com/defragment-the-ntfs-mft-and-other-hidden-crucials-in-live-windows

Hopefully that will get you further!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

additional info This is what happens when Gparted live USB is selected during boot, any fix pls

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Your BIOS just has some issues, that's completely normal. Windows keeps this stuff silent, but Linux typically tells you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sometimes partition-magic can get you more space, but you’re running a high risk of breaking things.

You’re also trying to shrink windows down to less than a 500gb partition and I wouldn’t recommend that.

Get a second 500gb ssd and boot your second os from there?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

Defragging is the fix for this, but that's not available on SSDs.

You'd need a dedicated partition management program to work around this issue. There is one major caveat - this could negatively affect the life of the SSD due to something called write amplification.

Personally I would suggest using another disk if you have one available...