Resizing the Windows 7 volume - making it smaller

DD will move the files/folders as required and adjust the file system.

Note that you already have four Primary partitions so you can't create any more partitions without first changing/removing one of them. You might want to take a look at this thread since it deals with the same problem.

It's recommended to create an Entire Disk Image backup before making partitioning changes if the data is important.

Yep, that thread is me . . . and after I did that - remove the recovery partition etc - everything worked fine. Except that after loading software on the revised drive mapping, for the first time I checked the SD/SDHC card reader that's part of the platform. Day 4 after purchase and it did not work. two days and 8 hours of on-line chat with the support centre working thru it (changed drivers, BIOS etc etc) and everything pointed to a hardware fault. Off the to warranty repairers who promptly re-imaged the system and proved that it was software after all. Seems that it's not uncommon for new systems to have corruptions somewhere in the registry that give these problems.

The laptop is back and I have to do the drive work all over again. But this time I thought I would ask about the side effects of re-sizing down - before I did it.

Davidk

Normally, there isn't any problem doing a regular resize. However, it is possible, but I don't see how that would affect a SD reader or card. You can aways run chkdsk /f on the resized partition to make sure it's okay.

Disk Management will also shrink partitions, but only to the furthest used area. I don't know if this would get it small enough for you or not.

If you think the process is causing the problem, do it one step at a time and check your SD drive/card afterwards. Maybe you can find out which step it is. Otherwise, it may just have been one of those things.

I didn't think it would cause a problem either. But the effects were:
- tone from OS when the card was inserted in the reader
- no appearance of card reader in explorer, which makes it unusable
- but the control panel/system/device manager/ disks showed an SD card item when the card was inserted, and not otherwise.

Odd, to say the least: the OS knows its there but the device is unusable. Smells of software. Not the first time I've struck this sort of situation either - on another desktop PC, despite settings that say it should be, an external USB HDD is not recognised on cold boot (but the control panel device lists for disks show it is there), but if the item is connected after boot all is well. In that case after a lot of effort including updating the BIOS I've concluded that the BIOS integration with the motherboard hardware wasn't done right by the manufacturer, and its cheaper at this stage to live with it.

On the laptop I had checked most items I normally use - particularly the USB ports and the DVD drive - but had not checked the card reader before re-imaging the drives. Did not ever work on test. We changed the card reader device driver, and updated the BIOS, all without any effects on this. Together with lots of re-boots with the card in and out - no change observed. So despite changing the software items nominated by the support centre, the effect was still evident and a card reader hardware issue was the diagnosis. When it was with the repair shop, the tech called and wanted authority to re-image with the factory data, said it was pretty common for a registry issue to cause this type of problem and the most frequently affected hardware item was the CD/DVD drive. As to which software item caused it - could not say. And he was right.

After I got the laptop back, I have a backup of the factory imaged drives using TIH2012. I was particular about checking all the various hardware items - mic, speakers, DVD, USB, webcam and card reader - with the original software image - well, original with MS updates. One item to go - the HDMI port and I do that at a university class I go to on wednesdays. So far, this time all the ports have worked when tested. If HDMI works, then the re-imaging of the drive after a C drive backup is the plan. If there are problems afterwards, I'll restore the C:drive with the backed up image.

Davidk

Did you check in Disk Management to see if the SD card just needed a drive letter assigned to it? Sometimes Windows won't automatically assign a letter because it's remembered as unassigned or it clashes with another drive (same signature, for example). I always check that first because it's an easy fix if that's it.

No. Did not even know you could do that. Neither, apparently, did the HP support centre. For future reference how do you do that - assuming the (admin tools) Disk management page listed the device???

Davidk

David,
In the list, in the center window of disk management, your disks will be shown in a list. Scroll down and find your card reader(s) and right click on the appropriate item and choose "change drive letter and paths".

You can get to Disk Management multiple ways. One is to click Start, right-click on Computer, and click Manage. When the Computer Management window opens, click on Disk Management in the tree on the left.

To change the drive letter, right-click the partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths option.

Thank you.

If only it was that easy....

When I mentioned that - for the laptop SD card reader case in this thread - it was a situation I'd seen before: the following is the related detail.
I attach 2 images of the windows disk management tool for the external HDD I mentioned in passing in the thread above. One is a disk map taken with the HDD attached at cold boot (the disk in question is listed as disk 3 and it shows as un-initialised, but also it is not in the volume list. The second is a disk map with same HDD attached after the system has booted, and now the disk is both listed as healthy but also appears in the volume list (drive P). That disk has about 20Gb of data stored on it in a series of folders. If the HDD can be detected by windows after boot and perform normal disk operations on it, then clearly there is nothing wrong with the USB electronics on the motherboard.

In the cold boot, not detected by explorer case, this HDD is listed by the control panel device manager by its size, brand name and model number.

Experimentation in the past showed that if the drive was attached and shown as listed after a boot, and remained attached when the system shut down BUT power was not removed before a re-boot, then it would be detected OK in that boot cycle and listed in explorer. Pretty obviously there's a memory connection that the BIOS uses for detected disks on start, and hence the handle for this external disk remained for use because power was still applied. The BIOS is set for detecting legacy USB drives. But an Award BIOS update did not fix the issue. I finally nailed it to the BIOS integration itself by taking the HDD to other PC's - laptops, albeit with different brands of BIOS - connecting it and then doing a cold boot start. Those systems read it immediately.

For the HP laptop however, it was barely 5 days since purchase and the SD card reader device showed some of the same characteristics - but only some: device was detected by windows but did not work in any mode. It was still under warranty so when the support centre concluded that it was hardware I followed their advice. But as part of the re-imaging that followed (which probably would have happened even it had been a hardware fault and the laptop motherboard replaced), the work on partitions has to be re-done as I have already outlined.

Muchas gracias

Davidk

Some drives and devices can be difficult. I assume you've gone into the Device Manager and had it scan for new devices. This can sometimes pick up devices that doesn't get automatically detected.

With the SD reader, is it any card inserted or only specific cards?

If you don't need USB Legacy Support, have you tried with it disabled?

The difficult to understand bit is that both of these devices (the card reader on the laptop, when a card was inserted, and the USB drive when connected to the desktop) were already detected identified and listed in the device manager. According to the properties data/tab at that level, both were operating correctly. Scanning for new devices did not seem relevant at that point.

Re the card reader, every card type (SD and SDHC, Lexar and Sandisk at 2 Gb and 8Gb) tested got the same reaction.

Re legacy USB support, according to the microsoft answer specialist I put the situation to recently, that setting is the way external USB connected hard drives are detected at boot time.

The SD card reader issue is fixed. It was software, as I outlined above, although what bit of the OS drivers or interface got corrupted is unclear. I thought we had changed every bit there was to change - several times, using different sources both local and off the net just to be sure - before the hardware call was made.

Why the USB drive reacts as it does - absolutely has to do with the BIOS. Why - its driven me nuts for 3 years, during which time I've bombed out repeatedly trying to fix it. That it was BIOS became clear when I got enough computers available to do testing on each of them. I quizzed Award - or whoever owns them now - and they said the board manufacturer did the motherboard integration. I updated the BIOS twice. I quizzed gigabyte and they said cannot reproduce. But since the motherboard is way past warranty, live with it seems the only option. The next time I update that item, the lesson is - choose another brand. At least connected after boot, the USB drive still works. In fact I'm using it to do the backup prior to the laptop drive changes in the next few days - the HP Insyde BIOS on the g6 Pavilion has no trouble at all in detecting and recognising it at cold boot even using a bootable rescue media disk.

Davidk