Why Can't I Increase Amount to Shrink
I have a 1TB SSD, but for some reason, Windows only allows me to shrink about 5000MB of it. I encountered this problem recently, and I don't know why. Can someone tell me why can't I increase the amount to shrink my drive? Thanks!
Best Answered by
Oliver· Answered on Jul 06, 2025
There are a few common reasons why you may not be able to increase the amount to shrink a partition in Disk Management:
- Unmovable files are located beyond the shrink point. Usually are Pagefile (virtual memory file), Hibernation file, System restore files.
- The file system may have errors or fragmentation issues.
- There may not actually be enough contiguous free space available, even if the total free space seems large.
To shrink the volume successfully, a reliable disk partition manager can be of great help. EaseUS Partition Master Professional can help you resize the partition regardless of the unmovable files. It can also repair corrupted drives if that's the cause.
Follow the steps here to resize your partition:
Step 1. Open EaseUS Partition Master and go to the Partition Manager tab.
Step 2. Right-click on the target partition and select "Resize/Move."
Step 3. You can drag the dot to extend or shrink the volume and move the location of partitions.
Step 4. Click "OK" and execute the task.
If you don't like third-party tools, there are other methods that might be able to help. You can first try disabling the pagefile temporarily:
Step 1. Search for Advanced System Settings in Taskbar search box and open it.
Step 2. Go to Advanced > Performance > Advanced > Virtual memory.
Step 3. Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size."
Step 4. Select "No paging file" and click "Set."
Then, you can also disable hibernation:
Step 1. Search for Command Prompt and run it as administrator.
Step 2. Run: powercfg -h off.
However, disabling Pagefile and Hibernation might bring some unexpected issues. So, I suggest you learn more details before doing so.
