My computer came with Windows XP pre-installed. The first partition is a 7 GB recovery partition. The second one is a 70 GB main XP partition. I would like to resize the 70 GB one without losing any data. It is NTFS. Then I want to create a partition to install Slackware on and possibly a swap partition. How can I do this for free without losing data? It's not worth $70 for Partition Magic which I would use once. Please help. Thanks.

if this is a new pc, i think it's faster/more reliable to re-install xp , while keeping space for Slack.
or is this not an option ?

and there are also evaluation-versions of PM. i believe, but i don't know if it's capable to shrink a ntfs-part.

egag

I think qtparted can shrink an ntfs partition. But I'm not sure, since I didn't have to do it.

When you find something to shrink the NTFS partition, be sure to defragment that partition before you shrink it. Otherwise, you might be limited in the amount you can shrink it.

Good luck

I once had the Partition Magic demo but you couldn't do anything other than check the features. Also, I can't reinstall XP because I don't have the disc, the computer came with no disc (I don't think many do) and XP is preinstalled. I'll look more into qtparted. Thanks for the crazy fast answers. These forums are amazing!

QTParted can shrink your NTFS partition for you. However, I used MEPIS and Knoppix Live CD's (both had QTParted) and they both froze when i tried to shrink it. I ended up just using 'fdisk' that comes on the Slackware install CDs. My situation was kinda similar in that Im using an HP laptop with a 40gig hard drive. It had one very small (<500MB) partition for something, another partition for hibernation, and the rest was for XP. Problem was that i had used 32 gigs of space...I set aside 5gigs for my Linux partitions (this is including swap, but since i've got 512M of RAM I decided i didn't need alot of swap). Im running into problems (just look for the most recent thread) but it seems like your on the right track. Just backup like everything on your computer (you can use a free 30-day eval of BackUpMyPC), and defrag like everyone else said. This post here was a great help to me. Hope I helped!

not sure what pc you're using, but with hp or compaq, they offer you the ability to create the recovery cd's by copying the files in the hidden recovery partition. this is accessed in "start>all programs>pc help and tools"
if you're not using an hp or compaq, i'd still check around to see if you don't have some sort of similar option...

i use partition magic a lot for those kind of tricks if u want i can send u an iso.

I have done what you want to do with a new machine, and I didn't want to fork over the money for partition magic either because I only needed to do this on one machine. Before I became a slacker, I began my introduction to Linux with Mandrake. On Mandrake 9.x versions and up, there is a utility that does partiton resizing just like partition magic, and best of all, it's free. If you run Mandrake setup on the 1st installation CD, you will come to a screen (early on) where Mandrake wants to create and format partitons. If you choose the advanced tab, there is a slider that you can use to resize the NTFS partition without harming your XP installation or data. I left the small utility partition on my dell (hda0) alone, resized hda1 (XP partiton) then saved it and exited the Mandrake installation. You can then reboot with the Slack CD. I created and formatted my additional partitions (swap, root, etc.) through slack and never had any problems. I would suggest backing up the data on your NTFS partition to be safe. If you don't have, or can't borrow a Mandrake CD, you can download the ISO for CD1 and use it for the partitioning. I keep a Mandrake 10 (which sucked) CD on hand just for the partitioning utility. Oh yeah, before you can do all this without losing data, you have to defrag the NTFS partition in XP. Once defraged, reboot to the Mandrake CD immediatley.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

Consider BootIT NG. It's got a boot manager that I'm using instead of lilo, because of the graphical UI, and because it also has an extremely useful partition manager. I just go into maintenance mode for the parititon manager, and everything works.

It'll resize your NTFS partition. It also has the ability to create a compressed image of any partition, which I use as a "recovery" partition for my Windows XP install. It's also not crippleware (though it does nag you about registering if you use for more than 30 days)

I have an HP a710e and I created the disks a couple weeks ago, but one question about them. Can they be used to make new partitions? I haven't tried them, but will they fix partitions? Thanks.

Also, do people have experience with qtparted? I think I might try that (if Partition Magic .iso is to big for dial-up). This is what I got on the qtparted forum from someone.

What's your thoughts? Can I do it safely?

well... i think there's no safe way to resize partitions.
it's always advised to back-up important things.

egag

Seriously, use bootit ng to resize the partition. I did it with my NT partition 12 times in the last 3 days, without any problems at all. (what can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment?) You can also run it off a boot floppy without needing to reserve space on the hdd for it.

I've also used it to completely wipe the hard drive, and reinstall Windows from an image. As long as the partition is in the right *place* in the partition tables, the size is irrelevant. So long as you're using a proper partition resizer.

Downloading bootitng now but it looks like it runs of a floppy and I don't have a floppy drive. Can I change that or do something else? Also, are you talking WinNT or NTFS or does WinNT use NTFS? I don't want to bust my computer as I'm sure you can understand. Thanks.

It'll require a floppy, AFAIK. Although, some of the other freeware on the site can be used to create a bootable CD. Those can probably be used to install BootIt NG to a CD drive.

Um, what genius decided you didn't need a floppy drive? If I needed a reason other than their moving my job to India (apparently they speak French in Bangladesh) not to buy an HP, that would be it....