How to Remove ~8-MB of Free Space at the Beginning of a Hard Drive

This article will explain how to effectively remove an ~8-MB block of free space appearing at the beginning of a hard drive.

Note: If the free space appears within an extended partition, at the front, the condition is normal, and the free space cannot be removed.

1. In the BootIt BM Work with Partitions, use Drive Settings to disable the Align on End setting for the drive in question, if it is enabled.
   
   
2. Slide the first partition up, being sure to specify 0 in the Free Space Before setting.
   
   
3. Important:  Enable the Align on End setting for the drive before continuing.
   
   
4. Resize the partition from Step 2 to the size shown under Max Size on the Resize window.
   
   
   • If you do not wish to enlarge this partition, perform the Resize operation without changing the New Size setting.
   
   Performing the resize operation, even without changing the actual size of the partition, causes the end of the partition to be aligned on a cylinder boundary.
   
   

TeraByte Unlimited recommends leaving the Align on End setting enabled for general use of BootIt BM, unless the Align on 1MiB Boundaries option is being used.