Resizing hard drive in new Windows 7

I have just purchased a new computer which came with Windows 7 home premium 64bit preinstalled with a 1T hard drive. I want to partition the available 931g hard drive into two partitions. I followed the instructions in Disk Management and shrunk the 931g partition by creating a 459.04g partition (blue line at top) and another simple partition of 451.38g which says it is unallocated and has a black line at the top. HOW do I make the unallocated partition active (I have followed the new partition wizard but end up with a message box which eventually tells me no.) I have repartitioned hard drives in the distant past but used a program for that purpose which I no longer have. Any advice would be appreciated Thanks. Berni

Hi Berni - Welcome to w7forums

First thing you need to realize before we continue is that you can only have one active partition. Setting a active partition is a flag that lets the system know which partition to boot from.

If you are asking how to make the partition that you just created usable. Then a simple format will do the trick.

Thanks for your reply - I have followed the wizard but it asks if I want to make the partition dynamic - if I say no it closes - if I say yes I get a message that says "There is no enough space available on the disc to complete this operation".
During the wizard the max size of the partition is 429907 and the minimum is 8, I set the partition to be 429000 so I am confused about the message I receive.
Could you give me the necessary steps as in A,B,C - I really do not want to leave this partition at 931g. I have partitioned removal hard drives before Windows 7 and cannot remember ever having this problem. Your further advice would be appreciated. Many thanks. Berni

Here is a post from another thread. If you are having troubles with Disk Managment you might want to try something different.

Attn: Clifford
Firstly my sincere apologies for not replying until now but a death in the family has caused me to not turn on my computer for over a month.
I finally solved my problem by using Easus Partition Manager (free version) which was easy to understand and resized the partition without hassle. I tried it first on a removable hard drive and then was confident to try it on Win 7.
My thanks for your assistance. Your help was much appreciated. Kind regards.Berni

Hi Berni

I'm sorry to hear about your lose.
What a terrible way to end a year.

I'm glad you found a solution and posted back. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.