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Old 12-06-2003, 12:59 AM   #1
MeanJoshGreen
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NTFS partitions


Hey all

I recently installed Fedora Core 1 on my other system, on a 20 gig HD. I also have two 100 gig HD's full of stuff that I can't lose, but they are NTFS format.

I've looked into NTFS support, and I've got NTFS read working, but I see NTFS write isn't going to be supported for a while, so I'm wondering... does anyone have any suggestions (other then backup everything and reformat) of a way to convert those two drives to FAT32 or any native linux format?
 
Old 12-06-2003, 06:44 AM   #2
ts_sudarshan
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if you want to convert the partitions of NTFS to FAT32 or any other native linux partitions then, use a commercial software like Power Quest PartitionMagic Pro.. which will allow you to do what you want...
According to my knowledge not many more softwares are there,,, that wrll do the downgrade as NTFS is a higher version of FAT32 and has journalling... a major change in the fs type and internal structure.


P.S.: version 7 of the software supports only ext2 fs of linux..
 
Old 12-06-2003, 06:52 AM   #3
ts_sudarshan
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Note: the PartitionMagic Pro software is available for windows... so suppose u don't have windows or you want to convert the drive that has windows on it, then use the boot floppy that the software allows you to create.. boot through it and let it do the MAGIC...

A note of CAUTION;; if you plan to convert a partition having a Windows O.S. on it from NTFS to Fat32, then proceed with CAUTION as it might prevent Windows from booting up.. also not many have experimented the downgrade as Windows natively does not allow it. for the partition with Windows, best procedure is backup data, reformat to FAT 32 and fresh install Windows...
 
Old 12-06-2003, 01:24 PM   #4
MeanJoshGreen
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ah thanks! I reinstalled windows and Partition Magic and converted the drives to FAT32

now to reinstall Fedora... thanks again ts!
 
Old 12-06-2003, 02:03 PM   #5
Eugene
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Why?
You waste a hell of a lot of time!

When in winblows do this:

1) defragment each of the NTFS drives
2) cleanup each of the NTFS drives
3) compress each of the NTFS drives
4) defragment each of the NTFS drives.

Then with partition magick or good old fdisk, resize your NTFS partitions on each drive.
The free space created partition as FAT32... now transfer as much as you can to the FAT32 from the NTFS hard-drives.

Do everything again.

 
Old 12-07-2003, 05:43 PM   #6
jos
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I just tried doing all this, and my problem is that there is a small slice of disk usage right in the middle of the 120GB drive. I need at least 100GB for Linux, and plan to have WinXP confined to 20GB, but I can't seem to downsize the WinXP partition below aroung 60GB because of the small slice of usage at 60GB.

Does anyone know what that is and what will happen if I ignore it (and destroy it)?

I tried turning off the virtual memory paging file, and that wasn't it.
I have done cleanup, defragment, compress volume, and defragment, all to no avail.
 
Old 12-08-2003, 07:54 AM   #7
Eugene
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hmmm...well

well I know a bit about this. lets see If I can help:

This is they way it goes.
Your Hard-Drive is split to partitions (You prolly know this already, but I found that the best way to explain something to someone is to start at the begining and talk to them like they are 4yr old )

On a partition there is a file-system.
Depanding on your OS and what you choose when you installed.

You have FAT32 (for linux) and NTFS (for winblows) (NTFS was made by M$... it has some pluses... but they won't reveal how it works. That's why you can't write from linux TO an NTFS partition... it will mess it up. But you can read and copy files FROM it to the FAT32 partition)

You can either ask a friend for a 100GiG hard-drive to be loaned to you for one day... (format it as FAT32, transfer the files from one of your 100GIG drives, re-format your now empty hard-drive and transfer the files back to it from your friends hard-drive, and do it again for you second one...)

or do what I said before.
first of all, only keep files that you REALLY have to keep.

If you have movies or stuff like that burn them to a cd (if you can) and delete them from the hard-drive...

After you clean-up, compress, and defragment your hard-drive, the files on it should take a lot less space...

When you defragment your files are moved to the begining of your partition.

remember I talked about file-systems... they are only diffrent in how they place the files on your partition.

well, imagine that your partition is a big white block, and the file-system devides it to small blocks. your files are stored in the small blocks.

A block with a file is black... well before you defragment, they are all over your partition.
After you defragment, all the black blockes will be closer togther and on the start of your partition... get it?

If there are files in the MIDDLE of the disk, then the defragment process didn't work on them for some reason. if you will delete that slice you will lose those files... that's all.

try moving files from on of the 100Gig hard-drives to the other and then doing the steps I said again... maybe that will work...
 
Old 12-09-2003, 09:15 AM   #8
Eugene
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?

Any news?

did it work?
 
Old 12-09-2003, 12:20 PM   #9
jos
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Hi Eugene,

Thanks very much for your detailed post.
Since I happen to have a second Windows machine on my network,
I'm going to try moving all user files to the second machine.
Hopefully that will include the little speck of disk usage in the middle of the drive that's preventing ntfsresize from getting more than half the disk back.
If that fails, I plan to resize the ntfs partition to 20GB anyway and reinstall windows if necessary.
(I'm afraid that speck of usage is going to turn out to be an MBR backup, since it would make sense to locate it there.)

Please let me know if I am overlooking anything, especially if there exists a free tool that will relocate Windows XP system files --- "ntfscompact" would be a good name for it.

Also, I believe it would be better to compact Windows to the top of the disk, near the spindle, where the disk runs slower in bps, and give Linux the beginning of the disk (starting from the rim).

I can't try my experiment until after a work crunch --- probably Wed.
 
Old 12-10-2003, 09:13 AM   #10
Eugene
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I don't think you are overlocking anything... try it and let me know
 
Old 12-11-2003, 03:07 AM   #11
jos
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Alas, after moving EVERYTHING off the disk except the standard system directories, there is still a patch of disk space in use at 60 GB. I guess it's time to repartition and reinstall Windows XP --- too bad.
 
Old 12-11-2003, 08:13 AM   #12
Eugene
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bumer
 
  


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