ntfsresize: enlarge to the left of partition help
 

Greetings,

I am trying to figure out how to resize an NTFS partition to occupy space to the *LEFT* of the partition. Obviously non-destructively.
I have some space I recovered by deleting an existing partition before the NTFS partition. And I wish to have this NTFS partition resize leftwards to occupy this space.

Here's what I've found, and please do correct me if I am wrong:
1. QTParted allows resize, but only towards space AFTER the partition. The option to change "Free Space Before" is disabled.
2. I read the ntfsresize man page, and even though it doesn't quite say it, I think they're talking destructive-resize and not non-destructive-resize. It says, use fdisk to create a larger partition and then create an ntfs filesystem in it.

So am I correct in understanding that as of now you cannot enlarge NTFS partitions left (or before) the partition?

If not, then can anyone help me understand how to do this?

Thanks!

Venkman
PS: I don't want to go the backup-delete partition-recreate partition-restore route.

I'm sure you can, but remeber, it's not exactly reliable. Did you unmount your HD first?

Make a backup soon if you like your data.

Don't try to resize linux or windows partitions to the left.
Your best bet is to make a backup image with partimage or ghost.
Then remove the old partition and create a new one using the left position that you want.
Then you can resize to the right using ntfsresize.

ctkroeker:
yes, the HD was unmounted - I did check that before I attempted anything. As I said the option was disabled and I couldn't touch it. Not sure what to do to get around that.

homey:
thanks for the advice. I still would like to know whether it *can* be done. I'm sure I've done it with PQMagic before (but not for ntfs though).

So, if you tell me how, then I'm curious to see if it works. If it doesn't, I'll restore the backup and move along. But if it does, that would be cool!

At this point its more academic than anything.

Thanks!

http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html
http://users.tkk.fi/~tkarvine/linux-...zing-ntfs.html

ctkroeker:
I read through that before I posted here (after hours of looking for the info online)
I still haven't found *ANY* information on how to resize to the *LEFT* of the partition.

Maybe I am explaining this wrong, here's what I'm trying to do:
The disk is a 160GB drive with three NTFS partitions.



1st: 20GB____| 2nd 20GB_______| 3rd 120GB____________________|

I want this drive to look like:

1st: 20GB____| 3rd 140GB____________________________________|


I deleted the 2nd one so that I could reclaim the space.
I am beginning to realize that qtparted will let me increase the 1st partition to occupy the 2nd's deleted space -- but NOT the 3rd partition to occupy the 2nd's deleted space.

(And thanks for your response)

I am having the same problem resizing an XP NTFS partition, using QTParted version 4.4 under Knoppix 3.9.
I have two NTFS partitions and one FAT32 partition on my hard drive. I can change the "Free Space After", on all of them, but I cannot change the "Free Space Before" on any of them. The text box is disabled (grayed out) and pulling the bar handle in the graphical view does nothing. No explanation is given. The file systems are unmounted.

I have to assume that this is some kind of bug. If there is some reason why resize is disabled, the app should give me a clue what it is. A product billed as a Partition Magic replacement would be pretty useless if it fails to perform half of its task. Partition Magic can certainly do that.

Ricky

There is one thing you should always remember when using GNU/Linux. All these tools work from CLI, and error messages go to the console. If you are using a frontend (QTParted in this case) you are going to miss some error messages and often some functionality.
Using parted from CLI you'd understand, that moving it "left" as you say, consists actually two separate actions: 1. move the entire partion "left", then 2. resize it to "right". Moving entire partition with parted is possible only if the free space is big enough to avoid overlaping. If you are clever enogh, everything is possible with parted. If not, go with Partition Magic, Windows, who cares...