Does anyone have any info about the MINI Tool Partition Wizard?
 
I am considering trying it on my new laptop. I would like to use the bootable CD option to shrink my laptop's C: drive partition as the Win7 Drive Manager will not shrink the volume as small as I want. The idea is to boot with the CD and not launch windows so as to avoid the placement of immovable temporary files that Windows uses when it is running.
 
I am especially curious to learn if the Partition Wizard works at the same low level as DiskMgr or if it adds some proprietary "layer" (for lack of a better understanding or way to describe it) of information that is referenced as Windows launches.
 
I don't want to try it and find out it uses some clever solution that back fires on you when you need to rescue your data at some later time.
 
Thanks.
 
best regards,
mike

 Not sure about that, but Bart PE is free and bootable live disk.  http://download.cnet.com/BartPE-Bootable-Live-Windows-CD-DVD/3000-2094_4-10611131.html

Thanks Grant,
 I am making quadruple backup images and then I am going to give it a go.
 
 Fingers crossed.
 
 best regards,
mike

MINI Tool Partition Wizard boot CD seemed to work but it was scary.
 
My pointer device on the new laptop is "touch" capable so what seemed like I was observing and causing unpredictable interaction, but now it makes sense to me. It seemed like mouse overs triggered mouse click interaction and now it all makes sense. It was touch functionality. Maybe that is part of the bios and I can turn it off. It added a lot of stress to the process while I was preoccupied with not screwing up my OS install.
 
When I finished with Mini Tool Partition Wizard I had to reboot twice to get to Windows. For a moment I thought I had fried the install, but it worked out OK.
 
I just used Win7 DSKMGR to add a simple volume in the space I made available and label and format it.
 
Good news. Now I can start installing stuff and migrate my current laptop apps and data to the new one.
 
:-S
 
 
best regards
mike

 Good news, that's never a stress free task when there are activations at steak, add to that a flaky mouse, an ordeal I'm sure glad you got it sorted

gparted?