Help with Partitions appreciated.

Hibernation file? Some other active program? If you've been using this drive a while you could have data spread all over the place, even if you've since freed most of that space up.

What is it you're trying to accomplish?

Before you start partitioning, you should defrag.

Use MyDefrag, it will allow you to defrag files to start of the disk and if it has unmovable files, you will be able to see which files they are.

I read somewhere around the time that Linux Steam was released and everyone went penguin mad... "If you need to be asking questions about partitioning, don't. Don't try and partition..." I guess that's mostly an over reaction but is still a good logic train. I don't know how much damage you could do by partitioning incorrectly but I believe it isn't small...

What software you are using?
Try EASEUS Partition Manager. It's free and always works for me.

First thing you should do is reboot your computer. When I've partitioned my HDD I've been able to get the most available shrink space if I try right after booting my computer and logging in.

Consider using bootable gPart software to do the partitioning. I did some pretty heavy partitioning some months ago and had no issues with it, but had a ton with Windows Partition software... that was a bad idea. Ask me if you need more help with this.