Hard Drive Repartitioning
 

I'm new to linux and I've been playing around with a few live CDs for the last couple of weeks. I'm just about ready to actually install one, but I don't know how to repartition my hard drive. I've never done it before, so I'll probably need step-by-step instructions. A link to step-by-step instructions would be just as good, of course.

I'm running XP and have more or less made up my mind that I'm going to install Ubuntu, if either of those things matter.

The Linux installer will do the partitioning--as long as you ahve some empty space on the drive.

Are you keeping XP and setting up dual-boot? If so, post you total drive size and current partition setup for some more suggestions. If youc answing another drive, I recommend one drive for OSes and Apps, and the other for data (FAT32 so Windows and Linux can both see it)

If you are installing Linux only, just boot from the CD and --unless you know that you need something differenet--just accept the default partitioning scheme that it offers.

And if you are dual-booting with windows you must derag your windows box first.

Why??

To install Linux on an exisiting Windows box, all you need is enough empty space on the drive---Linux could care less if the Windows partition is fragmented......:confused:

Someone on this forum will be able to give you a more *techy* answer. On my (basic) understanding, when windows saves data it scatters it all along the HD. You therefore need to consolidate all the data to the 'front' of the HD, thereby making more room for the linux install/partition. Otherwise you will may receive errors. Its generally standard procedure.

From Novell

"With an NTFS file system you have to run scandisk and defrag before you try to repartition, although it's a good idea even if you are using an older system."

You only need to defrag if you're reducing the size of a partition. If you have unpartitioned space available, you don't need to defrag.

Since most Windows machines don't have unpartitioned space, he'll probably have to defrag & resize.

Yeah, I'm gonna dual boot XP and Ubuntu on an 80 gig drive. I'm thinking of splitting it 60-20 for XP and Ubuntu, respectively, or maybe 55-25. I don't know how much space an Ubuntu install takes, but I'm sure 20 gigs will be plenty for the OS plus the stuff I might accumulate over time.

I'm also backing up all my important files of course, so other than defragging and running Scadisk, is there anything else I should know?

With 80GB, I would allocate as follows:

~10GB Windows OS + apps (NTFS)
~10GB Linux + apps (Linux filesystem)
Balance FAT32 data partition for easy sharing between Linux and Windows.

Even better is a completely separate drive for the data partition.

When I do this, I use a windows partionong tool (in my case Partition magic) to create the empty space. I'm not sure about the latest state of linux partitioning tools but writing NTFS (I guess you are using this on windows XP) has not been fully supported previously.

The tools in my Mandrake linux don't allow the same amount of partition adjustment as partition magic - get this or a similar tool.

From my experience don't re-partition once the 2 OSs are installed because a windows tool will mess up Linux and a linux tool (the ones I've used) will mess up windows. I run linux in a 6-7Gb partition on a couple of machines so 20Gb is easilly ok.

I also create a small fat32 partition (0.5-1Gb) to enable files to be shared between windows and linux -linux can safely write fat32 files

I always reduce the size of the windows partition leaving its starting point at the bottom of the drive and make empty space above it -windows does not like being placed elswhere on the drive. Petition magic is easy to use and well documented so doing the above is easy.

once you have empty space, then linux will partition this as it wants and won't move any windows partitions so won't effect windows.