how do i resize a partition in gparted
 

i know the basic way to resize a partition, just select it and choose resize but in my case i am trying to resize an ntfs partition but it won't let me and theres a yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside of it (i'm guessing it has something to do with why i can't resize the partiton

i am planning on dual-booting between windows and a linux distro

i tried to do it on 2 kinds of os, windows xp pro, and windows vista. it works top notch in windows 7 but most people use xp still and it won't let me resize the partition i need to know how do get it to resize.

thanks for your help guys

You need to unmount the NTFS partition first.

The best way is to do it with a gparted or Parted Magic Live CD which will not mount your partition to start with.

will it show everything graphically, and once i'm in the lived cd trhat you speak of how do i unmount it?

With a Live CD it doesn't mount your partition automatically.

Your Linux currently might mount it according to the information in /etc/fstab. You can always maually umount it in a terminal. Some distros like Ubuntu allows you to unmount it in GUI.

just saw all of the stuff on distrowatch about the gparted live cd and it seems to have a gui interface thats easy to follow (just what i was looking for) and you guys said that it won't mount anything and that makes resizing a windows partition possible (linux partitions have done this to me too don't know why)