resize external NTFS HD

blizunt7 · 10-11-2005, 05:00 PM

Hey All,
I have just attached an external NTFS 250G HD to my FC4 remote linux box, for extra storage.
I have succesfull mounted the device, and i am looking to resize the first and only partition and create a second NTFS partition, so i can mount each partition for different uses.

out put of fdisk -l /dev/sda

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001    7  HPFS/NTFS

i would like to use, lets say 70G for a new NTFS partition.

I have never created a new partition on a live drive, and just like anyone else prefer not to loose my other data on it already.

Can someone lead me in the right direction?

THanks

syg00 · 10-11-2005, 05:44 PM

Start here - there will be RPMs available I would think.
Redhat were all bitter and twisted about NTFS support, I suppose Fedora are too although I've never tried any of the FC distros.

blizunt7 · 10-11-2005, 06:22 PM

i have alrady downloaded NTFS support, and is working properly.

What I am looking to do now, is resize my enternal NTFS harddrive, and add a partition (NTFS) to it, via my linux machine.

Thanks

tkedwards · 10-11-2005, 06:59 PM

Use the ntfsresize program that syg00 pointed you to.

If you want a GUI then either install QTParted or boot off a PCLinuxOS LiveCD or Mandriva Install CD and use the Mandrake Paritioning program (in the PCLinuxOS Control Centre on PCLinuxOS).

Brian1 · 10-11-2005, 06:59 PM

I never tried using Linux tools on NTFS partitions but the only thing that comes to my mind is parted with the front-end qtparted. I would really look at using Windows to resize it with an app like Partition Magic or there are a couple of shareware tools. If you try qtparted I would make sure if there is data you need is to back it up first. Even Partition Magic recommends doing this before modify a partition structure.

Brian1

blizunt7 · 10-11-2005, 08:12 PM

Is there any reason why i cannot write to my NTFS drive from linux??

It is mounted rw, i am root, and all the perms are set right..

what am i doing wrong??

thanks so much
josh

tkedwards · 10-11-2005, 08:51 PM

The various Linux tools can safely resize NTFS partitions but you cannot write to an NTFS partition using Linux yet. NTFS write support is still under development and is not considered safe yet - I think the latest is that you can change already created files but creating new ones leads to corrupted partitions. For this reason most distros ship with read-only NTFS support only.

Resizing a partition is a completely different thing to writing files to it, which is why the Linux NTFS resize software can be considered safe while NTFS file writing support isn't.

As always of course, you should backup your data before you try to do any repartitioning.

Brian1 · 10-11-2005, 08:56 PM

Just about all the post here about writing to ntfs says use at your own risk. There is no gaurantee. There are many sub version levels of ntfs. They say captive-ntfs is better than using the ntfs write capablity from the kernel. Not sure which you are using. Reading ntfs is no problem just writing can ruining the partition. If you need to transfer between the two it is best to have fat32 partition since either OS have no problems writing.

Just from what I read.
Brian1