I'm trying to set my laptop for a dual-boot W7 + debian.

W7 doesn't seem to able to shrink its partition much, even though most of it is empty. The problem seems to be that W7 doesn't reallocate something called "MFT" files, which are placed at the end of partition. I've tried following the tips mentioned here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...uacy-problems/
but could not achieve much reduction in the partition size.

Is there a linux (preferably debian) app which can *safely* shrink the W7 partition, without the need to reinstall W7?.

TIA.

Take a look at "parted", and probably it's GUI front-end "gparted".

Thanks. Are you certain they can safely shrink a W7 partition?.

Shrinking a partition is never really safe, but GParted does a good job on that. Nonetheless it is always recommended to make backups before doing system-critical actions (but you have backups of your important data anyways, don't you?).

I don't have any personal data on the W7 partition, but the laptop did not include a W7 installation CD. Therefore, if W7 gets stuffed, I don't have a way to reinstall it, short of buying a W7 separately (which I'm not keen on doing).

The safe way is to use Windows 7 to shrink the drive.

That's what I tried, please see my original post:
"W7 doesn't seem to able to shrink its partition much, even though most of it is empty. The problem seems to be that W7 doesn't reallocate something called "MFT" files, which are placed at the end of partition. I've tried following the tips mentioned here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...uacy-problems/
but could not achieve much reduction in the partition size."

Gday mate, before doing anything create a system image file. This will be your backup, Windows7 has a built in tool for this and makes it very simple. If your Windows 7 partition won't work in shrinking it then i recommend Gparted live cd. I've used it in the past to shrink windows 7 partitions successfully. Once booted up the Windows partition was corrupt and it needed to be repaired with the install cd, but that was all automatic and easy done, and then all good. You say that you don't have an install disc. I don't know how else you can go about it, so maybe ask your friends or something if they've got one that came with there computers that you can burrow. i think that's legal since you're not pirating it, you're just using it to repair your own legal copy.

G'day Knightron,

If I create a W7 rescue disc (or whatever it's called), wouldn't it be enough to fix the system once booted, so I don't need to obtain a full W7 installation CD?.

One would think so; just make sure that it can boot your system image file so if everything does go wrong, you can boot up your system image file to get everything exactly the way you had it to start with. All the rescue discs that come with Windows computers, are called rescue discs, but are really installation discs that can act as a rescue disc.

Thanks.

Creating the image file is a built-in function of W7?. The laptop doesn't have an externcal CD/DVD drive. can this image file created onto a usb memory stick?.

Yes creating a system image file is a built in function for windows 7. When i had a windows partition, i uploaded my system image file onto an external hard drive. It'll be a complete copy of your hard drive, partitions and all, compressed into one file like an iso; i can't remember if it actually is an iso. I've just booted up my vm to give you exact instructions.

Thanks.

I hope i've helped :-)