Unable to Resize NTFS partition with 4 different partition editors
 

Hello,

I would like to set a dual boot Windows XP/Linux box.

I have tried 4 seperate partition editors. I have tried the one on the ubuntu CD, QTParted, GParted. I then got PCLinuxOS for DiskDrake But then I try it with DiskDrake and I get this error message:

Your Disk has Bad Sectors(manufacturing faults or dying disk). This situation isn't supported yet.

I have already defragmented Windows. At the current moment I have a 75 GB NTFS Partition and 8 MB of free space. I can't see why there would be anything wrong with my hard disk either, I have not had any problems with it.

Thanks.

do you need to save the data on the drive...if so then you may find help but its a big world and lots try to repartition ntfs...i for one have only ever lost with ntfs, i even tried some wacky ideas to see if there is a way around it...so far i have never succeeded in resizing ntfs...somebody may have but beware it will probably be some costly programme and will have a microsoft license attached to it...just make sure you have backed up everything first then butcher away and if it stuffs the windows partition then you can partition it in 2 and start clean...

I haven't had Windows for quite a while, so I don't really know about much of this stuff, but I know there is a program called Ntfsresize. You might want to google it if you're interested.

If you don't want to use that, you might want to use Partition Magic. Yeah, I know it's expensive, but it can be handy when you still have Windows on your machine.

Do you believe either of those products are likely to succeed where the other 4 partition resizers have failed?

Unless you have a corrupt hard drive, they should work perfectly. Since I've never resized NTFS with any of the others that you talked about, I wouldn't know if their any good. The only tool I've ever used for NTFS is Partition Magic and I've never had an issue.

If you think your disk is corrupt, I wouldn't try partitioning at all. Just back up all your data and get a new disk.

I've had this problem before.

Just defragment your NTFS partition. It should start working afterwards.

Edit: Ah, I apologize, I suppose I did not read your post clearly enough.

OP said defrag has already been done. You'll need to run something like "chkdsk /r c:" from the windows command line and reboot. Maybe a couple of times.
This will force recovery of any errors, and may lead to broken files.
Consider yourself warned.

All the Linux GUIs probably invoke ntfsresize to do the work - it puts out useful messages, the GUIs obviously throw them away.
I suspect PM won't be any more use due to the errors - although it may offer to fix them for you.

Tried Chkdsk r/ c:

First time it fixed some bad clusters. Tried repartitioning again, no success. Did Chkdsk again, this time it reported not finding any problems. It had one effect though- now on one the computer's local accounts that I set up for security purposes firefox will not run.

I guess for I now I need to get firefox up and running again so I don't have to run as admin in order to avoid using the plauge that is MSIE. Anyone have any ideas as to how I can get linux on?

Get rid of Windows.:)

On a more serious note, if you can't find the answer here you could always try contacting Microsoft or the manufacturer of the drive.

Would MSFT give me tech support to put another OS on my computer? In my experience, the thing tech support guys are most good at is blaming the problem/issue at hand on some other company's product. That and keeping you on hold for long periods of time.

I suppose I could try just reinstalling Windows and giving it a smaller partition this time.

Well you could just tell them that you need to resize your partition. They don't need to know what operating system you're installing. But then again, you are using Linux tools to resize.

I always used partition magic to resize ntfs partitions, which is not free...