Perhaps my question has been answered, but I cannot find one so far. After reading a discussion about how to repartition a hard drive using Mepis 3.3, none of the listed sites will open to me. Is this the best software to repartition a new Windows 7 hard drive? I notice there are later versions of the Mepis software. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'd have just done the gparted live cd myself.

What do you mean by this? The links are dead? You can't get online under mepis?

I might also be missing something, but are you sure you know what mepis is?

Hi rat74136, Welcome to LQ. The 3.3 version is several years old. You would be better served with a newer version. Mepis is one of many distributions that includes QTParted which is what I believe you're after. If you must have SimplyMepis 3.3, there is an iso here, however, I'd suggest a newer version.

Good luck. ;-)

Jamescondron, The links I tried were not connecting to the internet. I havn't a clue what mepsis is except that it was part of the info that I found on the help2go site I encountered when searching for a way to reformat a partition on my new disk drive. I actually was directed to a web site by Grimm322 from a 2005 posting.

peace dog, I suspected that when all the sites I tried to enter were not online, that later versions of the software I needed were online. I don't know what iso is either except to identify a specific version of Linux software. I will try the links you have suggested. As you both can tell, I have little knowledge about Linux. I am getting ready to become better informed.

Thanks to you both, and I will post again after trying those links. Any further advice you can give will be greatly appreciated.

robert74136

It sounds like you don't really need Mepis at all, just some way to repartition a drive. You could likely do that with any current LiveCD. I'd recommend the SystemRescueCD. You can find more about it here.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

If you could explain a bit more of what you are trying to do exactly, we could likely be more help. Mucking around with partitions can cause data loss, wade in under advisement.

Good luck. ;-)

Mepis is a distribution of Linux that comes as a LiveCD, meaning you can boot into Linux without installing Linux. That isn't unusual. Most distributions of Linux are available as LiveCD. Once booted in GUI mode, almost any Linux liveCD includes some GUI partitioning program, such as gparted.

In my own experience, Mepis 8.0 booted into GUI mode without problems on more combinations of old or strange video hardware than any other Linux distribution I tried. Mepis 8.5 (which is current) did not do nearly so well. I never tried the gparted CD to see how well it works on obscure video hardware.

If you want a liveCD as a tool for fixing lots of different systems that will have other OS's installed, it is nice to have a high probability that GUI will work easily on the first try. Video and wireless are the only things likely to have initial trouble at all, using a liveCD as a tool you often don't even care whether wireless works.

For installing Linux, almost any distribution has VESA or other boot time options that will get GUI to work semi OK long enough to install the right drivers for best GUI.

I thought Windows 7 (unlike XP) had good enough partitioning choices built in that you wouldn't need an external tool to partition for it.

Would either of you be able to tell me the best source of QTparted softward for download and use with Windows partitions.

Why not use Gparted if it's only for partitioning a hdd? This distro is dedicated for such things... tho, if you plan to install a Linux distro on your computer, you can boot from that linux cd, and partition the hdd during install process

Thanks for all the replies. To expand on the problem that brought my inquiry, when I installed windows 7 onto my hdd, it suggested a 100G system partition which I accepted. That seemed adequate. However, I encountered some problems with the installation, so after exploring many options, considered reinstalling windows. When I tried, the installation stopped because that 100G partition didn't have enough space for the temporary files required for the install. I didn't want to make another 100G partition containing system files that I couldn't get rid of. The only other option is to format the hdd and reinstall totally. That is the short of it. The total story is too long to relate. I think I am beginning to understand some of the terminology related to the Linux software and that helps. I had hoped that I could reinstall windows 7 by expanding that 100G partition, and then shrinking it back to 100G

That sounds very unlikely.

I haven't done a Windows 7 install myself, but it is hard to believe it needs temporary files anywhere near that big.

I don't know what went wrong in the first install, but I suspect the left over state from the first install broke the second due to corrupted directory structure or locked files or something else that might be reported as lack of disk space but isn't.

I think you need to trash that partition an start the Windows 7 install from scratch and then I don't know what might be different to avoid your original problem (Other than Windows install is inherently unpredictable: Do identical steps on identical hardware and you typically get different behavior).

If you want to try, download a liveCD image for almost any Linux distribution or for GParted or SystemRescue and burn that image to CD. Boot the CD and it should be pretty easy to find the GUI partitioning tool and pretty obvious how to use it.

After considerable thought, I have decided to reinstall Windows 7. I have imparted onbit of misinformation; the system partition is only 100mb. As I started my reinstall, I was able to expand that partition. Thanks for all your replies.