Can i resize my Widows XP NTFS partition, and make the unallocated space FAT, and Linux will still boot okay? or do i have to do a clean install?

Hi Hitman

We need more information - ie your current partition setup - Are you currently dual booting etc - however :

In general - it is possible to resize NTFS with a variety of tools - but beware - always defrag first then back up your files just in case of problems.

Again - we need more info to make suggestions.

"Linux will still boot okay?"

You will have introduced another partition on the disk and perhaps reordered the partitions. You will have to change /etc/fstab and your bootloader to reflect the new partition scheme.


"do i have to do a clean install?"

No. Changing /etc/fstab and either lilo or grub is sufficient.

im sorry aboout that, yes i already dual boot

/etc/fstab

/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda3 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda2 /mnt/win ntfs auto,ro,umask=002 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,users,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,users 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0


wanted to resize hda2, with that unallocated space make it FAT so that both linux and windows could write and read it. but i was thinking that would throw off linux and everything.

are there any steps, you can point me too?