Hi firstly this is my first post and I oppologize if thus has been answered before but I still can not come right!
I am trying to create a dual boot WinME & RH7.2 by resizing my existing 5gb hd with fips. I am verrrrry new to linux. I have followed the do & donts as regards scandisk & defrag etc however fips reports last cylinder not empty possibly image.idx etc and exits. I have used norton utilities to defrag and move swap files etc to begining of drive. I have also disabled virtual memory and deleted image.idx but to no avail. How do I find out what is at the end of my drive so fips will work without a fdisk and re install.:smash:

If you mean that the last cylinder on the drive is not free, I think I've seen this before.

Confirm by looking at the progress of the defrag program in windose - can you see unmovable blocks at the bottom of the page in the detailed view?

If so, then yep there's a problem, Houston.

If you have a CD burner, copy all your important files and reinstall Windows.

If you don't have a CD burner, consider getting one (seriously!) because sooner or later, if you fiddle with partitions you'll make a mistake (everyone does) but the consolation prize is that you'll never make the mistake again (probably).

Backups will one day save you, especially if you decide to work in the field.

After Windows is reinstalled, defrag the program straight away. This should free up the space at the end of the drive so you can run fips.

Bert

Hi Bert
Thanks for the reply, yes I am beginning to think the only way is to re install, although I had hoped I could do this without it as its taken 357 years to get my windows $£$% right.
Jeff

For anyone who might be having a similar problem!
I fixed it by using Norton utilities and choosing the option to defrag free space and then to wipe it. Win defrag does not appear to give enough control to sort the problem.
Even after i had done a full optimization defrag with norton it still left this 'infreq used' area at end of drive. So do a full derfrag and then defrag free space and wipe. Oh and and I was able to leave virtual mem as normal as well as the win swap file as norton had moved all to the front of drive. Good luck
Jeff