[TriLUG] Partitioning for n-booting

[Carlos J. Cela]

Mike,

You can use qtparted or ntfsresize to resize an NTFS partitions (Google 
for their home pages). They work well.

You can download them (check out because it depends on several 
packages),  or just use a Knoppix 3.3 CD (which is very nice to have 
handy, BTW).  Qtparted is self-explanatory. Just launch the Gui. It is 
just a front-end to ntfsresize.

Before using a resize utility, make sure to defrag the partition (it 
will refuse to resize if fragmented). Also, you might need to delete the 
hybernation file and the swap file (both are system & hidden) on the 
NTFS partition before resizing. The reason you need to delete those 
files is that the $%^# windows puts them at the end of the partition and 
they cannot be moved. It is safe to delete them - Windows will recreate 
them on the next reboot.

Hope this helps,
Carlos-


Mike Mueller wrote:

>I partitioned the hard disk on my laptop using DOS FDISK.  I created a FAT32 
>partition about 6GB and formatted it. The remainder of the disk was left 
>unpartitioned. 
>
>I popped in the Toshiba recovery disk and expected it to load into the small 
>partition I created.  Instead, the dang thing re-partitioned and re-formatted 
>the disk into an NTFS partition and ran the Symantec Ghost restore program.
>
>I think I am stuck with having to buy Partition Magic so I can reduce the 
>NTFS partition so I can load GNU/Linux.  
>
>The NTFS partition is not well handled by non-Partition Magic 
>re-partitioners.  The recovery disk is not a real XP installer so I don't 
>have options for re-installing.
>
>Am I missing something?
>  
>