Hi,
I have a 40 GB Hard Disk that's partitioned into a fat32 primary partition of 9.75 GB and an extended partition having 3 logical partitions of types:-

fat32 = 7.06 GB
unallocated = 2.69 GB
fat32 = 17.7 GB

I want to resize the unallocated partition to 6 GB and install a linux distro on it (it used to have mandrake 9.1 on it but Windows overwrote it and now it's shown as unallocated).

Would it be safe enough to backup critical data on its surrounding two fat32 logical partitions to the Primary partition since I don't have a CD-Writer to back them up on CDs?

Advise would be greatly appreciated since I really want to make a decent sized linux installation but am afraid of losing some data during the resizing part.

Thanks.

Hello....

Anyone, is it OK to backup data on the primary partition before resizing a logical partition?

Backing up data on the same HDD as you want to re-partition is still risky. There is a small chance that everything will go pear shaped and you would lose all data. It is hard to recomend re-partitioning any drive without a backup on a separate drive or CD/DVD.

That said, commercial programs like Partition Magic etc, do their best to resize without too many problems. I've done it numerous times without a problem, BUT I've always had a backup on DVD or different drive.

Maybe you could borrow a CD writer to make a backup first?

Baldrick

Thanks for the warning baldrick65. Advice taken. I will be careful and lay my hand on a CD Writer/ second HDD before resizing

Thanks.