Moving and Resizing Partitions

NetRAVEN5000 · 02-17-2006, 05:11 PM

I don't use Windows much anymore - just for games - and it's taking up a big portion of my HD space (40 GB) that I'd like to have free for Linux. I've got a 120GB external drive, and I was wondering how could I copy my NTFS partition onto the external drive and then just boot from that when I want Windows?

Also, can QTParted (or parted, or any other tool) safely resize my EXT3 partition?

pljvaldez · 02-17-2006, 06:24 PM

QTparted of cfdisk can both safely resize partitions, but you should run them from a live CD like Knoppix, not from a filesystem that you are running linux on.

Not sure about moving the windows partition, but I bet it can be done. Or use dd or partition image to clone the image to the USB drive and then use grub to boot it from the first drive. You'll probably have to edit boot.ini to make up for the fact that the windows install isn't where it thinks it should be...

NetRAVEN5000 · 02-17-2006, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pljvaldez

QTparted of cfdisk can both safely resize partitions, but you should run them from a live CD like Knoppix, not from a filesystem that you are running linux on.

Not sure about moving the windows partition, but I bet it can be done. Or use dd or partition image to clone the image to the USB drive and then use grub to boot it from the first drive. You'll probably have to edit boot.ini to make up for the fact that the windows install isn't where it thinks it should be...

Thanks I'll give it a shot!

Whether dd can clone the partition properly without corrupting stuff was mostly what I was wondering about. But I've got a good way to find out - learned it from my Windows days - I call it "always keep a saved a copy and reboot if the damn thing doesn't work"

syg00 · 02-17-2006, 11:04 PM

External meaning USB ???. Could make life interesting.
Why not just use (Linux) ntfsresize to get back as much of the (internal) disk as possible ???.
Might save a lot of grief

NetRAVEN5000 · 02-18-2006, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

External meaning USB ???. Could make life interesting.
Why not just use (Linux) ntfsresize to get back as much of the (internal) disk as possible ???.
Might save a lot of grief

A couple of reasons:
1. I'd like to be able to just plug in and play my games on other PCs (most new PCs - mine included, obviously - can boot from USB)
2. I'd like to have space available to install new games and don't want to have to resize all the time.
3. I don't want to use Windows anyway so why not just have it physically removed from my computer except when I want it?
4. I'm not really using the drive for anything else right now (and I could always have multiple partitions on it if I wanted to) - and methinks getting Windows off my PC for good and being able to take my games with me is the perfect use for a 120GB external drive. I could also have other files on there too. Who knows - maybe I'll want to use it for Linux too and keep my 80GB and 20GB internal HDs open for things I won't ever need/want to take with me. Both partitions could have more space than they currently have on my 80GB.

NetRAVEN5000 · 02-18-2006, 06:05 PM

Okay, I found my boot.ini - it looks like this:

Code:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

One problem: how do I find what partition my USB drive is in that format? Looks confusing as hell to me. I understand the partition part, and I think I understand the disk part, but what' multi and rdisk mean?