If you want to create a new Windows partition on a disk and the disk has no unallocated space, you can use the Windows Shrink Volume feature to shrink an existing partition at the end of a disk to free up space to create unallocated space for a new partition. This topic describes how to create a new partition (E:) on a disk by shrinking the volume on the D drive in a Windows operating system.
After you use the Shrink Volume feature to create the new partition, the original partition cannot be extended because no adjacent unallocated space is available. Proceed with caution when you shrink a volume on a disk.
Prerequisites
A snapshot is created to back up data on the disk for which you want to create a partition. For more information, see Create a snapshot manually.
Windows does not delete existing data when you shrink a volume, but re-arranges data in the file systems to generate unallocated space that can be used for the new partition. Before you shrink the volume, we recommend that you create a snapshot to back up your data.
Procedure
In this example, a Windows Server 2016 operating system is used.
Connect to an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance.
For more information, see Log on to a Windows instance using Workbench.
On the Windows Server desktop, right-click the
icon and select Disk Management. In the Disk Management dialog box, choose to view the partitions and capacities of disks.
The following figure shows that Disk 0 (C:) is the system disk and Disk 1 (D:) is a data disk. In this example, Disk 1 (D:) is used.
Right-click the area of the disk that you want to repartition and select Shrink Volume to shrink the partition.
In the Shrink D: dialog box, set a value in the Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB field and click Shrink.
NoteEnter the amount of space to shrink in MB: the amount of unallocated space that is available for a new partition after the existing partition is shrunk. By default, the maximum amount of space to shrink is displayed. You can change the value based on your business requirements. In this example, the value is changed to 200,000 MB.
Total size after shrink in MB: the size of the original partition after the partition is shrunk. In this example, the D drive is used.
Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB + Total size after shrink in MB = Total size before shrink in MB. As shown in the following figure, 200,000 MB + 107,070 MB = 307,070 MB.
After the shrink process is complete, Disk 1 has 200,000 MB (195.31 GB) of unallocated capacity.
In the Disk Management dialog box, right-click the unallocated area that is generated after the shrink process and select New Simple Volume.
In New Simple Volume Wizard, use the default settings as prompted to create a volume.
After the volume is created, the E drive is displayed.
References
You can use the disk resizing feature to create a partition. For more information, see Extend the partitions and file systems of disks on a Windows instance.
You can roll back data for a disk by using a snapshot of the disk. For more information, see Roll back a disk by using a snapshot.
For information about precautions and frequently asked questions about disks, see FAQ about Elastic Block Storage.