(I posted this in "software' 12 hours ago which was the wrong forum. I announced to them that I was redirecting it here. So I hope it is not viewed as a double post.)

Hi everybody,
This is my first post, and before my question, let me say as a 27-year-old New Yorker, I hope for next year as fair and just for people worldwide in all countries. I will do my small part. Maybe free software/open source plays a big big part. That would be great.
If anybody would be kind enough to quickly educate me about partitioning with Parted, I'd appreciate the knowledge! After years partitioning is one concept that just isn't sinking in like most. I have a question and would like to solve it with Parted, if possible. But I'm missing something about partitioning.

What I don't understand,
Using Parted from a Knoppix CD on a Windows-only machine with unallocated space, the primary partition (C drive) could not be increased but the extended partition (D and E drives) could.

Details:
The Windows 2000 desktop has one NTFS hard drive. At the beginning is the 3GB C drive (3GB primary partition), in the middle are the 3GB D and 3GB E drives (6GB extended partition) and at the end is 1GB of unallocated space.
And for the life of me I cannot understand why *anybody* still has Windows...
Nah seriously, the primary partition had to be increased, so I threw in a Knoppix 3.6 CD and loaded Qtparted. I was only able to add the 1GB of unallocated space to the extended partition (D or E). I was unable to use the 1GB of unallocated space for the primary partition (C).

My questions (all the same basically):
1) This normal?
2) Or I just don't know the right command? (tried Parted too couldn't figure it out)
3) Maybe I cannot use Parted or any program (to get the unallocated 1GB space all the way across without deleting the extended partition in the middle)?

Simple answer to this one I think:

NTFS drives cannot be resized... at all... ever... (AFAIK)

QTParted gained the capability to resize NTFS partitions recently.
My lettering scheme was bad. I should have named the partitions 1, 2 and 3 rather than C, D and E.
The primary partition is #1. The extended partition includes #2 and #3.
I booted from a Knoppix CD and shrunk #3 using QTParted. I restarted the machine in Windows and saw the resize took effect.
I booted from the Knoppix CD again. Using QTParted, I right-clicked on #2 and #3 and QTParted allowed me to add unallocated hard drive space to them (the extended partition). I right-clicked on #1 but it was not allowing me to add unallocated space to it. Nor could I shrink #1.
It seems like my extended partition is resizeable and my primary partition is not. This normal?

From http://www.mepis.org/node/view/796 applies to FAT, but it might apply to NTFS as well.

In this case, I used Windows Disk Defragmenter across the entire drive, each partition separately, before using QTParted.
It is Windows 2000 without any restore programs like System Restore or GoBack.

Assuming that the starting position of the extended partition has not changed there isn't any room to resize the c: drive. You will need to move the staring position of the extended partition. This will leave some unallocated space inbetween the c: drive and the extended partition. Have never used QTparted nor have attempted to resize an NTFS partition so I do not know how well it works.

The notes say the qtparted requires mkntfs and ntfsresize (linux-ntfs).

I shrunk #2 but moved the ending position.
The free space went between #2 and #3 rather than between #1 and #2, where I wanted it to.
So I could not increase #1.
I'll read the Parted manual soon what command can move the starting position of a partition.
This is not a priority during this busy work week for me so I'll figure it out next week.
I'll post back.
Thanks for the boost.