Is there a program that will allow me to shift my partition sizes without starting over. I have a dual boot with XP and now that I'm starting to use Linux more, I've ran out of space on it and want to take from the XP drive

Thanks
Ace

Your best bet is to use Windows XP drive tools to shrink your Windows partition. Then download and use Gparted to resize/slide your Linux partitions.

I too have a duel boot PC with Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10. When I set it up I gave Windows 50 GB and Ubuntu 70 GB as I have a 120 GB hard drive. I do a lot of photos and was running short on space on Ubuntu so used Parted Magic 1.8 that I purchased from OSDisc.com for about 5 bucks, money well spent as I have used it more than once with no problems. I resized the XP down to 30 GB as I only use it to play a few games. If I could figure out how to make Wine work I would not need it at all. Before you run this software be sure to back-up all important data onto a different drive and run defrag on windows and make sure you leave enough disk space for Windows when you resize your hard drive. Be prepared for it to take some time. I think it took about two hours for my job to finish. A word of caution be very careful as once it is done the data can be erased if done wrong. Good Luck.
Eric

Hey, Thanks

I'll look into it. BTW I haven't had a lot of luck with WINE. I am not hard core with gaming but i do quite a bit of it. Mostly older stuff given that I've never had a machine that would run the cutting edge stuff. So I figured Wine would be able to keep up. To date, i cant get it to run any game that requires a CD and usually the graphics look like a TV on the frits. So if you get it to run, let me know how you did it.

Thanks
Ace

Hi,

SystemRescueCd has what you need to resize the partition. It can be used when you are in trouble. Loads of utilities! You should defrag the M$ XP be fore you resize it. If you have a current Knoppix Livecd, it also has a lot of utilities. Knoppix has 'qtparted'.

These links and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'

gparted works fine for the whole job - XP/Vista/whatever. Better than the M$oft tools, including the (much better) disk manager in Vista.
However, be sure to only take space from the (right) "end" of an NTFS partition - do *not* even think of moving the start of the NTFS - especially the C: drive.

Hi,

I agree that qtparted can be used but most users aren't aware of the problems with using it on M$ Vista. It is much easier to use the M$ tools on a Vista partition by someone who isn't familiar with Linux partition tools.

Hey All,

I have defrag'ed my XP drive twice already, but when I go to use qtparted, it tells me that I need to defrag the drive before I can resize.

Here is how I'm doing it. I boot up with KNOPPIX. Use a root user shell. Start qtparted. Choose the XP drive. Resize down by 3 gig. I wait for a few mins while the HD LED flashes and then I get that I need to defrag unless I want to make the XP drive bigger.

If anyone can tell me where I'm messing up Or if there is a better defrag other than XP defrag, let me know that too.

Thanks in advance.
Ace

Sounds like your Windows partition is getting full and de-fragging doesn't move data enough to create the 3GB free space to shorten the partition. How much free space does Windows say it has, and total partition size. Maybe qtparted has attitude.

Your best bet is to use Windows XP drive tools to shrink your Windows partition. Then download and use Gparted to resize/slide/ your Linux partitions. Or you can just leave free space and tell the Linux installer to install in the free space using default partition scheme.

My apologies, it appears only Vista allows resizing partitions through disk management, not Windows XP.
My personal preference when it comes to resizing a Windows partition is bootitng, because of it's "non destructive NTFS/FAT partition resize". Open source partitioning software does not preserve all features of the NTFS file system. And I never de-frag, bootitng never complains about it, it shows you the largest size you can go if there is free space adjacent to it and it shows you what is the minimum size based on what's allocated space in the partition. You punch in a number in between these two sizes that you want, it will resize to a size within 7MB of the size you specified. This is because it aligns partitions within C.H.S. values which are about 7MB difference.
Bootitng only requires your money if you want the boot manager which is worth every penny they ask for it, but all it's other partitioning features do not require you to send money to use.

My personal preference when it comes to resizing open source file systems, is Gparted, open source partition software.

So shoot me!

Thanks for the info. I have removed files but STILL can't get defrag to take the files at the end of the partition and pull them to the open space within the drive. And it's not even "unmovable" files. So I think I'm going to take all my Zune videos and music and put them on an external. This will free up about 1/2 of my small 40G drive. Then defrag, change sizes, and put the files back.

At least in the last Zune software I've gotten, requires your hard drive to mirror your Zune, otherwise when you can't add files to the Zune. When you sync the Zune, it will delete off the Zune what it doesn't see on the drive. Thats a croc. So in short I have the largest chuck of my small drive dedicated to stuff I rarely use. Don't get me started.

Anyways, Thanks
Ace

For those interested (and who isn't?!?!) I finally got my partitions shifted to add more space to my Linux drive. Below is a brief list of steps and pitfalls for anyone else trying.

1) Tried qtparted with Knoppix live CD. Wouldn't work because XP defrag wouldn't remove files next to the end of the drive. (I had defrag'ed about 15 times)

2) Downloaded gparted live cd image file

3) Burned to a CD

4) Booted up into GParted and reset the parameters to the NTFS (hda1) and Linux (hda2)

5) Accepted size change to initiate the process. ** Note ** If you try several different size configuration before you accept, besure to delete the ones you don't want. I didn't and it took a long time to work through changes that were just going to be redone back to back. (yeah I know, not very observant)

6) I didn't lose any data or drives but lost LILO so my system only booted to a screen with 99 99 99 99 99 99 99... for about half the screen.

7) Booted up to a Windows Set up CD and ran Repair. Did the FIXMBR command. Was able to boot to Windows and the new partition size was recognized. It appears I didn't lose anything on NTFS drive.

8) Booted up to a Slackware 12 CD. ran setup. Chose source and target. Unchecked all installation packages. Then went through all initial set up steps. Not replacing anything when given the option.

9) Finally, it installed LILO, and so far everything in Linux seems right.

In short GParted works but on mine, it messes with LILO 22.8

Good Luck
Ace

After moving partitions, the boot-loader often needs to be fixed up. You should have simply needed to chroot into your disk system and re-run the lilo command. With grub (which I use exclusively), also can be done simply from a (any) liveCD.

When I do partitions, I do one at a time, and apply the change. Then do the next one. Rinse and repeat.
Never had a problem with gparted liveCD (good to see it is back being developed again).

I personally like Mepis live cd for my rescue work. I am not saying it is my favorite distro but the live cd has cfdisk, Qtparted, gparted and kate (which I prefer over vi)and it can be run as root once entered without having to enter su for every operation.

Hi,

I have several different distro LiveCD in my tool box; SystemRescueCd, UBCD Ultimate Boot CD, (R)ecovery (I)s (P)ossible, Slax 5.1.8, PHLAK.

These links and others are available from 'Slackware-Links' .