Gparted help asap!
 

Hey all, Im new to dual booting and so forth so was following APc mags explanations so I could dual boot with suse. Every time I go to apply the resizing of the partition it comes up with an error but doesnt explain whats wrong.. Im on XP atm and have no idea what it could possibly be.
Can anyone help me? Are there any australian numbers i can call for diect assistence?
Thanks

You should post the error message. Also post a little about the computer specs, if it is a OEM model like HP or Dell, Toshiba, just post the make & model if it's too tough figuring out the specs as that info can be obtained from the manufacturers web site. Most important at this point is the size of the hard drive and wether XP is using all of it.

Hey again. It just comes up with: "An error occured while applying the operations" but doesnt say anything beyond that and just undoes what it was doing. Now when I boot from the Gparted CD it will no longer show me how much of the hard disk is occupied or let me change the size of the windows partition at all even before "applying" the actions. Im using a HP notebook DV1000 with its custom version of XP. I recently formatted the hard disk so i could put everything on linux so theres only about 10G occupied and I was going to give it around 25G of my 80G.
I need my laptop for uni on monday but everything keeps stuffing up. Ive even tried downloading a diff copy of Gparted from a mirror but it does exactly the same thing. If anyone could help me out or maybe give me a number of somewhere in australia I could contact for assistence it would be more than appreciated. Im just fristrating myself trying over and over.

Are you sure there wasn't a recovery partition on the disk?

Yeah, theres a recovery partition but I was only partitioning the main hardrives usage. Its a 100G hard-drive overall but the main used section for the actual OS and operations is about 80G.

Well

Bootitng has no problems with "non-destructive" re-sizing NTFS FAT32 partitions, download it, unpack it in Windows, click on the .exe and a DOS window opens, follow instructions to make a bootitng floppy or ISO CD to use bootitng. Put the floppy/CD in the drive and re-boot, click "Cancel" to avoid installing to the hard drive, click OK to go into maintenance, click on "Partition work" icon and in the window that appears should be an entry for HD0 with your small partition at the top and free space below. Highlight the OS partition, click on resize button on the left, wait as it does a filesystem check, it will show you the size of the partition and minimum & maximum size. Change the middle field to reflect more or less how many Megabytes you want the partition to be. For approx. 20GB size, put 20000, etc. Then click OK and wait till it says "Complete". Click on "View MBR" to make sure your Windows partition is marked "Active", hit "Save" and the close. Pull out the floppy/CD and re-boot.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

there are 3 partitions. 1 is recovery, 1is virt RAM aqnd the last is the major mem Im trying to partition.

Ive done all that, except now it wont let me alter the sizing of that partition at all when before it would and it also no longer shows me how much room is occupied. The error was occurring when when I clicked apply to apply the changes to the partition size it loads for a while then comes up with the error mentioned above. Im just incredibly frustrated with the whole thing.

If you have the XP install CD, then you can do the following
boot from CD, and reach the point where the installer asks you "where to install windows", choose custom and delete all the partitions make the partitions reqd for windows and leave the space intended for linux unpartitioned and go ahead with install. The installer will format the c: partition, but rest you will have to do once the windows boots up.
After that you can install linux on unpartitioned space and dual boot

Are you still able to boot into Windows? It's beginning to sound as if the partition table has somehow been damaged.

Also it is a good idea to defragment ntfs partitions a couple of times before they are resized.

found an error report. (btw it is now allowing me to see the size occupied and letting me resize before applyi9ng but still not letting me apply the actions).
"You might resize at 8259555328 bytes or 8260MB (freeing 63547 MB). Please make a test run using both the -n and -s options before resizing!"

actual error:
"ntfsresize v1.13.1.1 (libntfs 9:0:0)
ERROR(95): Opening '/dev/sda1' as NTFS failes: Operation not supported. The NTFS file is unclean. Please shutdown windows properly before using this software! Note, if you have run chkdsk previously then boot windows again which will automatically initialize the journal correctly."

???

I can still boot into windows fine but it has decided to randomly add an admin account with a password not set by anyone. I made sure I defragged and everything before I started my attempts.

stupid thing worked damnit! it just decided to work! If anyone knows why it worked i would be very happy to know.

It just decided to work? LOL.

Probably because you first had to boot-up Windows to have Windows do a file system check and possibly fix a couple minor details. Are you writing this from Windows on the laptop, assuming you got passed the new Administrator.

Now that's good news indeed. It seems to me that it was really a filesystem error. Did you have a closer look at the error message: "unclean filesystem"? That's usually the best indication that the partition has some errors which need to be corrected first. It was probably booting into windows again that finally solved it.

Im on a seperate computer writing this but yea i did boot up into windows. Maybe that was it.. And to think I spent the last 24 hours frustrated as hell just because of that! Thanks again guys for all your help. Ive used linux before but Im still pretty new to it. I plan to install SUSE as soon as the correct version downloads lol (I downloaded a 64bit by accident). anyone know a site I can download a whole tonne of useful linux progs for free?

Freshmeat - the one and only. ;)

cool, thanks again. In a completely random and seemable unrelated topic.. anyone know why the linux symbol is a penguin?

extra progs? Jeez, by the time you're done installing the software that comes with Suse, you won't be looking for any extras. Really, there is so much! But do make sure to add the repositories: that's where all the goodies tend to be (media players, codecs, tools, etc).

There are 300+ repos at software.opensuse and no officially supported search engine. Have fun. ;)

can anyone give me a link for downloading the full install CD ISo for SUSE10.2? I can only find the online install...

openSUSE Metalink Downloads or openSUSE Download Instructions

thanks Ill check it out :-)

Sure thing and have fun. ;)

I try clicking on the metalink and it just downloads in 2 secs.. any tips?

every link I click to download the full dvd tells me that it is forbidden!!!

OK, I know that these do not cover the whole lot (beryl etc are in a separate repo again) but I think these pretty much cover it all:

http://http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_package_repository

Edit: I see that beryl etc are there after all

You downloaded the BitTorrent file that points to the tracker, now you need an application called BitTorrent to open this little file and start downloading the ISO.

I'm assuming

http downloads of an ISO image are disappearing as they are a great load on the servers, a torrent download passes it on to the next person, if you have 200kbps bandwith, 150 or so may be downloaded onto your hard drive, the other 50 is packets you upload to the next person of the parts you already have downloaded. These numbers will vary. But BitTorrent is the best way to go, I did Mandriva 2007 DVD in about 8.5 hours as the connection I was using gets 380kbps in the wee hours of the morning. I did Debian Etch DVD 1 in just over 3 hours using jigdo download.

There's nothing like getting it straight from a mirror, though. I get 1200kbps at all times of day; a 3.8 GB dvd rarely takes me more than an hour. As for bittorrents, that does vary greatly: I have seen speeds ranging from 50 to nearly 900 kbps - it really depends on how popular your download is. And on your ISP. And on how well your torrent client is configured.

That hurts :cry:

The connection I have runs an averate of 4kbps..........dial-up.
The one I borrow for the big downloads is wireless, and the best I got during the busy times (8am to 12am) will rarely go over 200kbps. Small ISP in a small town. 6000 peeps. :mad:

EDIT: I downloaded Fedora 6 via BitTorrent on my dial-up, took 17 days non-stop.

Seriously? I thought these speeds were pretty standard. Not, apparently.

Yes, I guess it's fast (but then my ISP actually promised 4 Mbps...so I'm deeply deeply disappointed with them;) ). And guess what? We've been bugging them for more monthly bandwith. Their answer: sorry, no can do, but we're working on higher speeds...

Ive been downloading SUSE for 5 hours now and its still saying itll take a day and 6hours. My connecxtion speed is 512kbps but its only downloading at 26kBps instead ofd the 60 its supposed to be on. Nothing else is running so its just being a bastard. Its even dropping so low as 15. dunno why.. Im going to complain to my ISP tomorrow first thing!

Well, there usually isn't much your ISP can do about it if you're using a torrent: after all, the speed is largely determined by the number of people who are currently downloading/uploading - the more there are, the more you have to download from = higher speeds. That being said, ISPs can have an impact, but well what do you do if they say it's not their fault or that they haven't got any choice? The usual excuse is that the download is being delayed by their security filters and that surely you couldn't expect them to turn those off... My own ISP puts it this way: we're fighting illegal downloads by reducing torrent speeds. Duh!

Btw,you need to make absolutely sure you pick a good torrent client; many people tend to use stuff like limewire etc. Don't; if you pick Azureus instead, you'll often (but not always) get a tremendous boost. But Azureus needs to be properly configured (can be though) or it can actually be slower.

As I said before, and unless you find Azureus is doing OK, I recommend downloading from a mirror whenever possible. It's usually much much faster. And then there is the whole idea of "seeding" that comes with using a torrent: Azureus etc expect you to upload as much as you download - I'd love to, only my ISP imposes a 2GB per month upload limit.

I was using BitTorrent in Windows on my laptop and got the same slow results, I can only use the connection during the night on a week day as it belongs to a business, I let it go all night and got there in the morning and found Windows had shut down my laptop and only got 2MB. I brought it home and transferred it to my desktop to let it build up during the day in a Linux BitTorrent. I installed bootitng, made some room for two partitions (/ and swap), installed Mandrake 10.2, installed BitTorrent, transferred the partial torrent back to the laptop and went to town, it was at nine percent, I started at 9pm and I don't know when it finished because I got there at 6am and it was done.
The BitTorrent for Windows was a real turtle compared to Linux, I used the same file and the same connection. And pulled the battery out of my laptop so it would not get shutdown again. That was for Mandriva 2007.

EDIT: Also, with Windows, I was seeding more than downloading.

Is there any way to turn off uploads on torrent?

Not sure whether it can be completely disabled but it can be kept pretty low. I don't know which torrent client you're using but I guess some such funtionality must be accessible from the menu.

You should see the implications of that option, though. Torrents are nothing but networks of users who are exchanging their stuff. The DVD doesn't exist on a central location but only as parts and bits on the computers of all the members of the network. So whatever you download was uploaded by other users first. Now, if people start limiting /disabling their uploads, you can be sure that the whole network is going to get unbearably slow. In some cases it may even lead to incomplete download: if the last uploader signs off, there isn't anyone else to keep feeding the downloaders.
As a measure to prevent such undesired effects, torrents usually create a connection between download and upload capacity: the more you allow to be uploaded, the faster you can download. Btw, if you are uploading more than you're getting back, you can be pretty sure that there are (many) other users on the network who are doing their downloads while refusing to do any uploads.

If you restrict the upload speed, you restrict the download speed. Torrent downloads have a sort of pre-defined ratio. I eventually found it was better to set upload speed as fast as possible which also gave the best download speed. As I found with BitTorrent, the only speed you can set is the upload speed.