How to compress Windows 10 during installation. How to compress a volume or partition in Windows

Today we’ll look at how to partition a disk in Windows 10 without resorting to third-party software, because virtually all users of the new operating system have this need.

No matter what supporters of specialized programs say, if the operating system has the appropriate functionality, there is no point in using them. Therefore, we will take a closer look at how to partition a hard drive using the Windows 10 integrated storage tool.

What is important, we will work from under the operating system itself, without even resorting to using the installation drive with the Tens distribution kit.

First of all, dividing the drive into volumes is necessary if you purchase a new device, it does not matter whether it is a laptop, a computer or a larger hard drive. This is done for several reasons, the main ones being ease of use and safety.

Imagine what will happen to a 500-1000 GB hard drive if you format it during the reinstallation of the operating system in order to get rid of all the files of the old OS. Installing a new system on top of an old one makes little more sense than simply updating it from Windows itself: all the garbage will remain, which will soon affect the performance of the computer.

And it’s more convenient to store different types of data on different volumes (games on one, video collection on another). The operating system with software must be located on the first logical disk due to the nature of the HDD.

Running a utility to change disk layout

Working with partitions begins by launching the Disk Management program, which has remained virtually unchanged since its introduction into the Windows 7 operating system. The tool is launched in several ways.

Control Panel

1. Open the Control Panel via Start, Win→X (by holding down the appropriate key combination) or a shortcut in a convenient place.

2. Change the visualization style of window icons to “Small icons”.

3. Call the “Administration” applet.

4. Launch the last utility in the list “Computer Management”.

5. Expand the “Storage Devices” section in the left vertical menu.

6. Click on the “Disk Management” item.

Command interpreter

The second, and more effective, method to call the tool for partitioning the hard drive into volumes is to use the capabilities of the Run window.

1. Call up a dialog to quickly execute system commands and open resources using the Win+R key combination.

2. Enter the command “diskmgmt.msc”.

3. Launch it using the “Enter” key.

As a result, the same window will open as in the previous version, but without unnecessary interface elements.

How to use the built-in disk manager

The application window displays a list of all detected digital information storage devices, including those operating using flash memory technology (solid-state drives and flash drives).

The first in the list are the partitions reserved by the operating system, where the files necessary to reset the operating system to its original state and its boot loader are stored. These volumes of 100-350 (sometimes more) megabytes in size should not be touched in any way.

1. In the main frame or panel below, select the hard drive or its volume that needs to be divided into the nth number of partitions.

The main thing is that there is a sufficient amount of free space on it, which is at least slightly larger than the size of the partition/partitions being created. And if the system volume is divided, at least 10 GB of free space should be left on it. You will need it to store temporary files and install missing software.

2. Call the context menu of the selected object and select “Compress volume...”.

This operation will allow you to “cut off” the specified number of gigabytes from the partition and form a new partition or several in this place, but their total size will not exceed the amount of data allocated for this.

3. In the parametric window that opens, set the volume of compressible space.

This is exactly how many megabytes will be freed (turned into unallocated area) in order to subsequently mark it up in the desired way.

After specifying all the information, click “Compress” and wait. Depending on the size (and the degree of damage to the hard drive - this factor primarily affects the speed), you will have to wait from ten seconds to a couple of minutes until the application completes the task of reassigning free clusters of the unallocated area.

Upon completion of the operations, an unallocated space of the specified volume will appear on the diagram; this area is distinguished by the presence of a black stripe at the top.

4. Through the context menu of this space, call the command “Create a simple volume...”.

By default, its size will be equal to the unused space, which is important for forming one volume in this area. If you need to create several partitions, enter the size of the first one in megabytes (taking into account that 1 gigabyte equals 1024 megabytes, not 1000).

5. In the Create Simple Volumes Wizard, select the file system. Set the cluster size and label.

It is better to choose NTFS as the file system. Even with many shortcomings, it is the best solution from Microsoft. Cluster size: if small files will be stored on the disk, it makes sense to set it to 2096 KB or less in order to optimally use the space, and for storing video collections and images it is better to use a larger cluster size. Nothing depends on the volume label, and it can be easily changed through Explorer at any time.

As a result, the file system of the new partition will be formed and a new volume will appear on the hard disk. When creating several partitions with an unallocated area, you will have to do the same as in steps 4-6.

Volume partitioning during Windows 10 installation

If your computer does not yet have an operating system, you can also crash your hard drive while installing it. The difference between this option is the impossibility of dividing the drive into logical volumes without formatting, and this method is not suitable for hard drives with important information.

1. Boot from the installation distribution using the Boot Menu.

2. We get to the stage of selecting a disk for installing “ten”, choosing the “Custom” option.

3. Remove unnecessary volumes to make them an unallocated area.

4. As before, select this space and create sections of the specified sizes in it.

It so happened that when working at a computer, the user got used to having a hard drive divided into two partitions D:/ and C:/. Where on one the folder with the system is stored, and on the other they save various media files, such as photos, music, films, etc. But, sooner or later, everyone who works on the Windows operating system has probably encountered a situation where it was necessary to increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D, due to lack of free space.

As a rule, this disk fills up due to the fact that various programs and games are installed on the computer in abundance. Also, this space fills up at an incredible speed if the user saves all possible files only on the desktop. Another reason for filling up free space is temporary files from the Internet and . As a result, due to lack of space on the system partition, you will not be able to download anything from the Internet and will not even be able to run more than one program.

A few sentences below you will find detailed instructions on how to how to enlarge drive C using various methods, ranging from third-party software to the LiveCD, which I think many people already know about with . Of course, we will never forget to consider increasing the size of the C drive using a standard Windows utility called “”.

Before we get started, I want to note some nuances.

• We will increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D. Therefore, make sure that you have enough free space on the local drive D:/;
• Unfortunately, you won’t be able to increase the space on drive C using a standard disk management program without losing data, so be extremely careful so that you don’t have to do it manually later;
• All the tips that I will describe below apply to absolutely all major operating systems, the Windows family (7/8/10);

So we free up disk space from which we will bite off a piece and proceed to the practical part of the instructions on how to enlarge drive C at the expense of D.

Increase disk space with Aomei Partition Assistant utility

The first we will use is a program that is distributed free of charge and will help us increase the size of the C drive directly from the Windows working environment. But, before you use it, of course, you need to download and install it on your computer. There is nothing to explain here, I think you will cope with this with a bang.

The main thing is that during the download process, do not forget to change the installed language to Russian.

Having launched the program, its interface should open in front of you, with various windows in which complete information about the hard drive and all the partitions into which it is divided will be displayed.

So, since we came here with the goal of increasing the size of disk C, taking free space from D, we perform the following steps in order.

If you simply resize the disks and don't click the apply button at the end, you won't get the expected result. After completion, the computer will reboot several times and you will receive the additional space on the system disk that you specified earlier.

We increase the space on the system disk using Disk Director.

The next option is also not bad, but it is not entirely convenient, in that to implement it we will have to boot from it later.

You might ask, if it is so complex, why am I showing it? Hmm, there are actually a lot of reasons, for example, you need to increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D, but when using various programs, a message constantly appears that the system cannot lock the drive to complete the operation. So, it is precisely in such cases that a LiveCD with the Disk Director program helps us out.

So, for those who don’t yet have such a disk, you can download the one that I use: Link. Next, just write it down on any disc, as a simple image and .

In the loaded LiveCD, find the Disk Director icon on the desktop and launch the program. An interface will appear that is very similar to the working environment of the program we discussed just above.

To increase the size of drive C, perform the following steps:

1. In the top panel, click on this icon, which will launch a window to increase free disk space;
2. In the dialog box that appears, select the partition to which we want to add free space and click “ Further»;
   
3. In the next step, we will need to select a partition through which we will add free space;
   
4. Next, the wizard to increase free space will ask you to use the slider to indicate the size of the partition to be expanded, in our case it is drive C. Having moved the slider as you need, click “ Further", to continue;
   
5. Before starting the process, the program will definitely show you the structure of the newly created partitions and ask you to press the “ Complete»;
   
6. Now, to apply all changes, click on the checkbox;
7. A list of operations that have been scheduled appears. Having familiarized yourself with them, click on “” to begin performing all the processes to increase the size of drive C;
8. The conversion will take a few minutes, although the procedure itself may take even an hour depending on the size of the hard drive;
   
9. After the program has finished running, reboot the computer and check whether Disk Director has completed its task;

This method may not be the most convenient due to the fact that you need to create a new disk, but it is not more effective for me than others, and will always help out in situations where programs from the system’s working environment simply cannot cope.

Increase space on drive C using Disk Management

And finally, as I promised, let’s look at how you can increase drive C at the expense of drive D using Windows’ own resources. Those who decided to use this method, I hope you haven’t forgotten that it has one rather serious drawback: when the partition is enlarged, your personal data will be deleted from the disk “ D" Therefore, I recommend using this option only on new machines and clean hard drives.

If you still intend to use this particular method, then call up the window “ Execute» by clicking « Windows+R" and execute the command there .

The window of the utility we need will open, which will display all the drives that are connected to the computer. There, separately, you will see your partitions C and D, and several hidden boot sectors, by the way, which I recommend not touching under any circumstances, so that you don’t have to restore the system later.

Now, having selected the section with the letter D, right-click on it and click “”. Performing this action will delete both the disk itself and k and all the data stored on it, therefore, do not forget to save it somewhere else, for example on a flash drive.

In the next step, go to drive C and call the context menu in the same way, but this time select “ Expand volume..." A window will appear where you will need to specify the size of the free space to be added. All the space that we freed up by deleting drive D will immediately be displayed, but since we don’t want to take everything, we only indicate a small part of the number we need, for example 4000MB.

Attention!!! If the disk you want to enlarge has a button “ Extend volume", I recommend using the first or second option.

By increasing the size of disk C at the expense of D, we return our donor back to normal. To do this, right-click on the unallocated space and select the first line “ Create a simple volume"and then follow the instructions, which he recommends utility. The volume letter will be formatted and assigned, after which you will be able to use it as before.

In this article I did not try to show you different programs that do the same thing, here I wanted to tell you about three methods that can help you in completely different situations. For example, you can use the first option during normal system operation, the second in case of some kind of breakdown, and the third in the case of a new computer, you don’t have to download anything, but can quickly do everything using “Disk Management”, spending only 5 minutes.

If you are reading this article, it means you are not satisfied with the size of your C drive and want to increase it using the free space on drive D. The problem is generally common and does not require any special skills. Unless you download Acronis Disc Director from a torrent tracker or buy its full version - as you please. It is through the example of the capabilities of the Acronis program that in this article we will explain to everyone how expand drive C to include drive D in Windows 10 and earlier versions without losing the data that is on the screw and spending a minimum of time.

Before we begin publishing step-by-step instructions for resizing disk partitions, we would like to note right away that this article will focus on one physical medium, which was once split into several logical drives. In simple words - if your computer or laptop has two (!!!) or more hard drives - this article is not for you. We resize partitions within the same media, one hard drive. It is impossible to “glue” two hard drives into one using the software method, using Acronis, without special devices (Raid controllers), and that’s not what the article is about.

Instructions with pictures: how to expand drive C with drive D in Windows 10, 7, 8, 8.1

There is no need to rearrange Windows. Everything will remain as is, there will be no loss of files, it will take a little time, depending on how powerful your processor is and how much data needs to be transferred. A user who has spent at least a year at the computer and can independently install and uninstall programs can cope with the task. further step by step and, as promised, with pictures:

1. Download Acronis Disc Director edition no lower Home and versions no lower 11 . With them you will have fewer problems when working with Windows 7 and 8.1, and there are plenty of links on the Internet. Or you buy the official version - as finances allow, we are not hinting at anything. Moreover, it is much cheaper to download a hacked version for a one-time change in the size of drive C at the expense of drive D. Anyway. To work with Windows 10, it is advisable to download/purchase ADD version 12 and higher.

2. Install.

3. Launch. Here you will find approximately the following interface:

Here it is worth paying attention to what partition style your disk has - GPT or MBR. If GPT, then before expanding drive C at the expense of space on drive D, you will have to convert the disk to MBR, this can also be done without losing data, but in this article we will look at the issue of working with a disk whose partition style is MBR. In this case, you will not see a “not supported” message in Acronis Disc Director, and on the left (see photo above) in the “Actions and Tools” menu there will be a list of operations that you can perform with the disk space of your hard drive. Let's move on.

4. Allocate transferable space on drive D. Yes, before transferring a certain amount of disk space to drive C, you need to coordinate this action with drive D. To do this, you right-click on it (drive D) and select “Resize volume” from the menu (the drive letters are different in our screenshots , but this does not matter, the essence remains the same).

5. Click the OK button. You have a new virtual partition waiting for action to be applied, but take your time with it.

6. Click right-click on drive C and, using the same principle, move the slider to the right over the unallocated space that appears, which will be transferred from drive C to drive D without losing existing data or disrupting the system.

7. Press the button " Apply pending operations (2)"

The computer reboots after being asked to complete a task. Do not turn it off and do not interfere with the process until you see the usual desktop and the expanded size of the C drive at the expense of the D drive.

Most users are accustomed to using two partitions on one hard drive, usually a drive called C and D. Many have become interested in the question of how to change the disk size in Windows 10 using the built-in system tools (during installation of Windows or after) and third-party free programs.

Use the Disk Management utility

• Open the utility by right-clicking on the Start menu and selecting Disk Management.

• In the search bar of the Start menu, type “Control Panel” and open it.

Select "System and Security".
In the window that opens, in the “Administration” item, click on the “Create and format a hard drive” sub-item.

Shrinking a volume, freeing up space to create a new partition in Windows 10

To create a new volume in the utility, you first need to get free space somewhere for this; it can be obtained by compressing space on an existing volume. In the Windows operating system, no more than 4 partitions can exist on one physical HDD, including system ones (for example, the Recovery Partition). Typically there are two local drives C and D.

To create a third volume, you need to right-click on the partition that has more free space, in our case it is drive D. An explorer window will appear, click on the “Shrink volume” item to free up free space, change it to unallocated.

Partition D to create a new volume.

After this, the message “The volume is being polled to determine the available space for compression” will appear. Wait…". The process can last from several seconds to several tens of minutes.
When the system finishes polling the volume, a window will appear in the “Size of volume to be compressed” column, you need to indicate how much space needs to be separated from the donor disk to create free space for now. It will not be possible to allocate more space for a new partition than specified. In the example in the screenshot, the limit is 78880 MB, a little more than 77 GB.

You can specify any other number less than the one specified above, for example, by setting the value to 51200 MB, allocate exactly 50 gigabytes for the new volume. After selecting the “Compress” option, no result will be noticeable for some time. To check whether the compression process is in progress, you need to hover the cursor over the utility window; a spinning blue circle should appear. When a black strip with unallocated space appears at the bottom of the window, this will indicate that compression has occurred.

This frees up space to create a new volume on the HDD in Windows 10. Now the unallocated space needs to be turned into a full-fledged hard drive partition.

— Creating a hard disk partition from unallocated space

You need to right-click on the area labeled “Unallocated” and select “Create a simple volume.”

The “Create a Simple Volume Wizard” will open, click “Next”, in the next window you will need to specify the size of the new volume. You can leave the value unchanged, or, if you want to create two or more sections, specify a smaller value. Click "Next".

After this, select the Latin letter that will denote the disk, for example, F. Select the letter and click “Next”.

You will then be able to format the new partition if necessary.

Continue by clicking “Done”.

After a few seconds or minutes, the partition is formatted and a new Windows 10 hard drive partition will be created. When choosing the amount of memory you want to allocate for creating a new one, you must take into account that a small amount of compressed space will be taken by Windows for system needs.
So, when choosing 50 GB of memory, we got a volume of 49.9 GB in size.

Creating partitions when installing Windows 10

When installing Windows 10 on a computer from a flash drive or disk, you can divide the disks into volumes. For those who reinstall the operating system, you need to take into account that this will lead to the deletion of data from the system partition.
During Windows installation, after entering (or skipping input) the activation key, select “Custom installation”, after which you will be able to select a partition for installation; tools for configuring partitions are available.

In our case, drive C is partition 4.
To make two partitions from one HDD, you need to use the “Delete” button to create a partition; as a result, it will be converted into “Unallocated space on the disk” (point 4).
Then select an unallocated space, click the “Create” button, set the size of the future “Disk C”. After its creation, there will be free unallocated space that will need to be converted into a second disk partition in the same way.

After creating the second partition, it is recommended to select it and click “Format” (otherwise it may not appear in Explorer after installing Windows 10 and will have to be formatted and assigned a letter through “Disk Management”). Then select the volume that was created first, click “Next” to continue installing the operating system on drive C.

Programs for partitioning disks

In addition to the built-in Windows tools, there are many programs for working with disk partitions. Some of the best free programs are Aomei Partition Assistant Free and Minitool Partition Wizard Free.
First, you will need to download the Aomei Partition Assistant program from the official website, install it on your PC and run it. The application has a Russian language; we select a non-system drive, in our case it is “E”.
Right-click on it and click “Resize partition”.

The selected amount of memory will appear, in our case – 15 GB.
Right-click on the system local drive C and select “Resize partition” from the context menu.

Again, drag the slider to the right to the desired size, or set the required space for expansion in the “Unallocated space after” field. A warning will appear to make a Windows 10 system recovery image or a backup copy using third-party tools, click “Ok”. To save changes, click “Apply” in the upper left corner.

A message will appear that there will be several reboots, during which drive C will be merged with unallocated space, select “Go”. A message will appear that the program will work in PreOs mode, click “Yes”.
Windows 10 will begin to reboot.
When you boot for the first time, AOMEI Partition Assistant PreOS Mode will launch.
The process of completing the task will begin.

Like previous versions of the operating system, Windows 10 supports NTFS file compression to save disk space. Unlike ZIP archiving, NTFS compression does not require the user to put the necessary files in a separate archive and then extract them for use. The system compresses files, reduces the space occupied, but the objects are ready for use at any time and do not require additional actions.

NTFS file compression works using tools built into the system and does not require the user to download or install additional software. You can compress files in Windows 10 using both Explorer and the Command Line. The latter method is more complex due to the need to remember commands and additional parameters. You will find both methods here.

The efficiency of file compression is directly proportional to the size of the object. In other words, the larger the file, the more disk space the system can save through compression. In this case, the compression time will also be directly proportional to the size of the compressed file. This simple but quite effective compression method will be useful for those who have very limited space on their computer, but at the same time need to constantly store large files locally. If you are one of those users, then it will also be useful for you to read the instructions “”. It will help you carve out a few extra gigabytes of free disk space. In addition, look at the instructions for freeing up space on the system disk after installing the operating system.

Please note that compressed files and folders in Windows 10 appear with an additional icon with two arrows. This will help you figure out which files are compressed and which are not.

How to compress files in Windows 10 Explorer

Once the changes are applied, you can evaluate the effectiveness of the compression. The screenshot shows that before compression the folder occupied 1.08 GB of disk space, and after compression the volume decreased to 0.99 GB of disk space. In this case, the savings were approximately 8%, which is quite good.

How to decompress files in Windows 10

Everything is done in exactly the same way as file compression.

Compressing files via Command Line in Windows 10

Click Win+ R and enter cmd. In the command line window that opens, you need to enter the command compact/# “full path to file or folder”. Depending on the desired result, you will need to use the following commands:

• Compact/c “ fullThis is the path to the file or folder"– compression of one file or folder. If you compress a folder, then the compression will not affect its subfolders.
• Compact/u “ fullThis is the path to the file or folder"– recovery of one file or folder.
• Compact/c/s “ fullThis is the path to the folder"– compresses a folder with all its files or folders.
• Compact/u/s “ fullThis is the path to the file or folder"– restore the folder to its normal size with all its subfolders or files.

Additional commands for the utility compact.exe include:

• /C- Compresses user-specified files or folders. Directories will be named in such a way that all new files will also be compressed. Objects with the /EXE parameter will be excluded.
• /U- Unpacks the specified files. Directories are marked so that files added later will not be compressed. If the /EXE option is specified, only files compressed as executable files will be unpacked; if this parameter is omitted, only NTFS compressed files will be unpacked.
• /S- Performs the specified operation on files in the selected directory and all its subdirectories. The default is the current directory.
• /A- Displays files with the attributes "hidden" and "system". By default, these files are skipped.
• /I- Continues to perform the specified operation even after errors occur. By default, the COMPACT program is aborted when an error occurs.
• /F- Forces compression of all specified files, even if some of them are already compressed. By default, compressed files are skipped.
• /Q- Displays only the most essential information.
• /EXE- Uses compression optimized for executable files that are read frequently and not modified. Supported algorithms: XPRESS4K (fastest, default), XPRESS8K, XPRESS16K and LZX (highest compression ratio).

There are also a large number of third-party applications for compressing files and saving space, but here we only covered the tools built into Windows 10.