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12-27-2005, 08:34 AM
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#1
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Member
Registered: Aug 2004
Location: India
Distribution: Redhat 9.0,FC3,FC5,FC10
Posts: 257
Rep:
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Unformatted space?
Hey Guyz,
Was just wondering..is there any way to see how much unformatted space I have while booted into Linux?I mean :-
fdisk -l is going to give me a list of partitions that I have and I can figure out how much space they take but it doesnt show me how much space I have left on my disk if I want to install another OS.
df -kh will give me free space left on my existing partitions.I just want to know how to do this while in Linux. I know I can just pop a CD in to the drive and find out the necessary using the Linux installer but is there any other way?
Any pointers r appreciated...
Thnx
Arvind
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12-27-2005, 09:42 AM
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#2
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Olympia, WA, USA
Distribution: Fedora, (K)Ubuntu
Posts: 4,187
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Look at qtparted.
Caution: If any of your disks are NTFS formatted, be aware that NTFS uses (and requires) "unpartitioned" space as a sort of "swap" space. This usually shows up as a 1 to 2 mB "free" area at the end of any disk containing a NTFS partition.
Edit: Not quite right. See comment below.
Last edited by PTrenholme; 12-28-2005 at 11:12 AM.
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12-27-2005, 10:47 AM
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#3
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Member
Registered: Aug 2003
Distribution: Slackware,Arch
Posts: 389
Rep:
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as root
cfdisk /dev/hdx
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12-27-2005, 12:11 PM
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#4
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Moderator
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 26,551
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Windows uses a file for swap called pagefile.sys (NT and later).
The info from fdisk will display the size of the drive in addition to the size of the partitions.
fdisk -l (that is a small L)
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12-27-2005, 03:56 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Olympia, WA, USA
Distribution: Fedora, (K)Ubuntu
Posts: 4,187
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michaelk
Windows uses a file for swap called pagefile.sys (NT and later).
The info from fdisk will display the size of the drive in addition to the size of the partitions.
fdisk -l (that is a small L)
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This is, of course, quite true.
And I was incorrect to refer to it as a "swap area."
But, as I said, the NTFS requires a small, hidden, area at the end of any NTFS formatted partition, and any attempt to use that space can, potentially, cause unrecoverable problems with NTFS. I believe that repartitioning tools usually deal with this NTFS strangeness.
From http://www.linux-ntfs.org/
Quote:
4.2. Notes
4.2.1. Other information
Everything is a file in NTFS. The index to these files is the Master File Table (MFT). The MFT lists the Boot Sector file ($Boot), located at the beginning of the disk. $Boot also lists where to find the MFT. The MFT also lists itself.
Located in the centre of the disk, we find some more Metadata files. The interesting ones are: $MFTMirr and $LogFile. The MFT Mirror is an exact copy of the first 4 records of the MFT. If the MFT is damaged, then the volume could be recovered by finding the mirror. The LogFile is a journal of all the events waiting to be written to disk. If the machine crashes, then the LogFile is used to return the disk to a sensible state.
Hidden at the end of the volume, is a copy of the boot sector (cluster 0). The only Metadata file that makes reference to it is $Bitmap, and that only says that the cluster is in use.
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(Emphasis added.)
Just a "heads up" for those using the Windows XP or 2000 (or NT) operating systems and looking at disk partitions. Especially "dual booters."
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12-28-2005, 01:14 AM
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#6
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Member
Registered: Aug 2004
Location: India
Distribution: Redhat 9.0,FC3,FC5,FC10
Posts: 257
Original Poster
Rep:
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Thnx guys ..appreciate the assistance given..that serves the purpose beautifully...and just for anyone else reading this thread...qtparted is a GUI utility based on a CLI utility called 'parted' so if you wanna stay CLI you can use parted...
Cheers
Arvind
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