Well, no, not bad advice at all. But still... Maybe it's just me being biased but I don't really see what you mean when you mention those "horror stories". I'm sure that a large majority of the more advanced users in this forum have relied on Gparted exclusively and I really haven't read any horror stories from them. That doesn't mean anything else is inferior, it just serves to highlight that it may be too facile to blame the software. Do you really think that bootitng, partition magic or anything else would be any more failsafe in the hands of the average computer user? And, by the way, what is a "windows based " tool? I may be missing something essential here but I rather doubt that developers who write partitioning software for XP have certain insights into ntfs that are beyond open source developers. How is it that ntfs-3g and ntfsprogs aren't windows based? Do you mean they are designed to manage the Linux ntfs file system? I don't think that there are many distros that offer ntfs as a valid file system during install...And, by the way, Gparted is just a front-end; all of the libs it depends on have reached stable status quite some time ago. What are the chances of a front-end screwing up a partition (table)?

You and I both Jay73, were the main posters in a thread with a Gparted "horror story" a few months ago where a young lad from Australia was seemingly ready to commit suicide (exaggerated) after using Gparted to resize his NTFS partition to make space for a Slackware or Suse installation (something with an S). I even mentioned bootitng in that particular thread. That particular "horror story" is one of those I referred to earlier. Eventually he came back to tell us he tried again and solved the issue. Then he was complaining that he couldn't find an HTTP link to download Slack, so we suggested using BitTorrent, then we had some discussions regarding the strategy and features of torrent downloads.
But it's OK, you can stay in full denial in an attempt to have the last word, and I won't go dig it up just to prove a point, I'm sure someone viewing this thread will take the time to do so and come to agree. Just like I didn't resort to throwing cheap shots at Syg00 like Syg00 did to me. (I'm not going to say I prefer not to judge a book by it's cover, because I would only be kidding myself and lying, I just choose not to do so at this particular time)

And because I do data recovery and digital forensics, I base my "Linux tools, Window tools" view on real world experience working on file systems with Windows ported, and GNU tools using all of them in the respective operating systems they can be installed in at the same time in a virtual environment.
Can you install and use most GNU software in Windows? If it can be installed in Windows, it is windows based, bootitng is used in a DOS (Microsoft) environment. I haven't seen an "ntfsprogs" that can be installed in Windows, or maybe I don't see straight, can you point it out for me.
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/19/37/

I certainly can:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/ntfsprogs.htm

Or the whole Cygwin suite. True, it involves some emulation but I don't think it has a reputation for being notoriously unstable.

omg, I hope that isn't a sign of early dementia, I don't remember a thing about that. That may be Freudian, unconscious denial as you imply - but it's also possible that the situation wasn't nearly bad enough to remember. After all, you tell me that the person in question was able to find a solution in the end. So this once more raises the question: was is the software or was it the user?

I know but sorry, I think that isn't necessarily relevant in this case. I would be more interested in hearing how often you have found gparted to mess up (badly). Again, I agree that some tasks are better left to "native" tools but I also believe that this can't be generalized. What do you think about the many people who are using ntfs-3g to write to ntfs partitions? Such writing engages a non-linux file system no less than using gparted. Do you recommend that people stop doing so altogether because only windows should be allowed to use ntfs? Do you recommend that people stop using photorec to recover botched-up windows partitions?

And, by the way, what's with the accusing tone? Full denial? That makes me sound MS-like evil...

Will, if your doing anything to do with changing the partitions and decide to panic and reboot or just yank the plug out of the wall, your kinda asking for it...

I used gparted today to do a lot of clean up and it worked really great. Ran into one problem caused by cfdisk (gparted tried to warn me not to do what i wanted to do so i ended up paying the price), somehow I managed to reset the cmos settings and spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out what my bios settings must have been. Also figured out what happens when you use so-called High Performance BIOS settings" as opposed to "Default BIOS settings". Found that out after my system started acting really really weird ! Oh well, at least i got a very very streamlined system with only the partitions that I really need. I had Slack 10.1 and two installations of Slack 12 on my system, now there is only just the one Slack 12 install with plenty of space for /home, /usr/local and /usr/local/opt. It was a clean your system up day and it paid off as now my mind is all that clearer.

Oh well, just thought I'd share that with you!

- perry

How about I spell it out for you, and this time I'll use words like: GPL, shareware and proprietary rather than Windows tools and Linux tools.

I do work with an arsenal of file system tools for many platforms. I started with GPL software and found it amazing, only because I was not prepared to fork out the dough. Now that I've acquired some shareware, and proprietary tools, I am not as blind sighted as many people here, or maybe it's a bad case of "selective sight". It is now clear as mountain spring water, that you get what you pay for. When working on the proprietary file systems, the proprietary tools are generally more robust, and the part you all apparently choose not to see, "ease of use", see the quote below.
There are GPL tools ported to Windows, but they are usually missing some key features only available with shareware and proprietary versions. I tend to think, it's a licensing issue that is responsible for the difference. There is a thread here started a couple days ago asking if Linux users would be willing to pay for software (proprietary). Based on most of the responses, most members here at LQ, are "two faced head hunters in denial" just cruising the forums looking to show who's got more testosterone than who.
I'm not biased, I use them all, there are some great tools in all flavours, but based on my experience using them all, proprietary and shareware is better with proprietary, GPL is good with GPL and in some cases, proprietary also, just not as good in comparison with similar proprietary tools. See the quote below.
There is "pure garbage" tools also, in all flavours, maybe more on the proprietary side, but there's also more proprietary systems.
I use ntfs-3g, if I save a web page with flash ads to my ntfs partition with firefox in Linux, I cannot delete it from either Linux or Windows, but if I save the same page from within windows in the same partition, I can delete it. I'm sure that's not the only draw back. like permissions maybe.

Hmm, I'm afraid that this can go on forever. Of course proprietary tools have features that are missing from GPL'ed ones (and the other way round) but the question at hand is a lot more specific: whether gparted is reliable or not. I was interested in hearing how often it has actually screwed up one of your ntfs partitions. The answer was overall pretty abstract without any figures that I can see. Can I assume that the answer is a bit less than once? Or am I in full denial again?

As for the ease of use that you mention ... Haven't you ever wondered why it is that you have a job at all? Is it because all those morons messed with GPL'ed software or because even proprietary software isn't half as easy to use as you seem to claim? No, please don't respond with more generalizations. Stick to the original question and show me some figures.

No Jay73, the real question here is quoted below:
One person recommended Gparted, another recommended Bootitng and pointed out some differences. What the F**k is your problem already, the poster got a choice to which he/she can consider and dicide on his/her own. Do you still want to continue tossing the testosterone? It's obvious your head hunting and off the topic.

Yep, I could see that one coming after the mountain water rhetoric. And still no figures but plenty more insults. You really aren't stinting yourself I see. Well, for lack of argument (on your side that is) I'll consider this thread closed. Have a nice day.

It's funny how a question on partitioning seems to end up in an argument between two members - the same thing happened on the Slackware forum not long ago. Me, I'm still trying to work out what a "two-faced head-hunter in denial" is.

Sounds to me like you're just trying to stir up the pot.

Me? Stirring things up? No, just commenting on questions about partitioning that lead to quarrels among members.

I never had this problem with ntfs-3g. Firefox indeed had a few bugs handling FAT and NTFS partitions but those are fixed already: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/support.html#firefox1

Can you send an URL to a web page you're having the above problem, so we could also try it out? Thanks! :-)

Sorry:
I quit saving web pages "complete" about four months or so, when ntfs-3g reached version 1.0 is when I first installed it and have since wiped that partition off and reloaded the data because of those items. I got into the habit of saving web pages in "HTML only" to avoid this problem.
Sounds to me like you're calling me a liar.
EDIT: Actually, I switched to a better method of saving web pages, I created a file with kwrite and named it "web links.rtf". I copy and paste the URL of a web site in this file and give a description in brackets at the end. I use the .rtf extension so it will not be altered by Wordpad in Windows where it is easy to add/remove to/from it from there also.

Anybody else want a piece of me? Come and get me. It's obvious the "not so knowledged" hate the "more knowledged". Maybe if y'all spent a little more time reading, you wouldn't be able to find the time to go "head hunting".