delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices key
copy/resize partition
mark new partition as boot
disconnect original disk from the system
repair MBR on new disk using Windows install disk

Cheers!

--Can one delete that key on an external USB drive somehow- is there a registry editor that works without Windows, or works on an externally connected drive's registry???

IMPORTANT : READ THIS FIRST IF YOU WANT TO WORK ON WINDOWS XP OR VISTA

Can I work in windows 7 With it?

Anyone had the same experience?

I also suggest that the presence of this file is made more clear. I only stumbled upon it by accident, and had been trying to use the GParted graphical utility to do the job. Unless the user looks in "/root" for some reason they won't see it.

the problem is, that fragmentation is a Windows issue. Linux filesystems generally need no defragmentation, so the "level of suffering" isn't high enough to develop a "cross-system" defragmentation tool.  A big problem also is, that M$ doesn't publish specified details of its present filesystems. So it's rather difficult to always "stay tuned", and therefore it might be risky to use such a hypothetical Linux tool. On the other hand, Windows API offers (safe!) defragmentation commands for all its filesystems, so why looking elsewhere ? I didn't yet test it, but it's possible, that "jkdefrag" works from a free "Vista Recovery CD", so that even systemfiles (e.g. pagefile.sys)  get defragmented, which are always blocked, when Windows is running. BTW, there is also a recommendable Windows commandline tool "pagedefrag.exe", which does the job !  And to complete the list, you should know "contig.exe", which defragments one or a smaller group of files. As you might know, Linux bootmanager Grub4DOS is able to boot a CDROM image ... and it complains, if the image isn't contiguous. Use "contig.exe", and it runs ! Keep in mind, that EVERY total defragmentation tool needs 15 to 20% of  unused volume space as a minimum for its work.

Regards
cmdr

Thank goes to cmdr for writing the detailed resize-windows.txt instructions found at the beginning of this forum post.

A fast, effective GNU defragmentation tool would be a dream ...

Dream fulfilled : I found Portable JKDefrag Version 3.36, a GNU project. It's a fool-proof (background) defragmenter for Windows, which uses Windows API functions and is therefore very safe. It works with some limitations on VISTA, too.

Cool!  I was not aware of any other defragmenters.  This one appears to run under Windows.  If you happen to come across one that runs under GNU/Linux I would like to know.  It could be a useful tool on the GParted-Live CD.

A fast, effective GNU defragmentation tool would be a dream ...

Dream fulfilled : I found Portable JKDefrag Version 3.36, a GNU project. It's a fool-proof (background) defragmenter for Windows, which uses Windows API functions and is therefore very safe. It works with some limitations on VISTA, too.

Advantages versus Windows Defragger are :

- Much faster.
- Totally automatic, extremely easy to use.
- Optimized for daily use.
- Disk optimization, several strategies ( parameter driven ).
- Directories are moved to the beginning of the disk.
- Reclaims MFT reserved space after disk-full.
- Maintains free spaces for temporary files.
- Can defragment very full harddisks.
- Can defragment very large files.
- Can defragment individual directories and files.
- Can be run automatically with the Windows Scheduler.
- Can be used from the commandline.
- Can be used as a screen saver.
- Can be run from cdrom or memory stick.
- Sources available, can be customized.

I put it into my draft of "resize-windows.txt".

Which version of fdisk and on what platform (operating system) is this new "(i)" option available?

Did you use the (w) write to disk option before you exited from fdisk?

Version :  fdisk (util-linux-ng 2.13.1.1)
This version is contained in "GParted 0.3.9-1", to which I referred in my draft.

After typing "w" , fdisk ends with :
--------------------------------------------
The partition table has been altered !
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
--------------------------------------------

It's clear, that it doesn't work on mounted drives.

I think, this would exceed my curiosity at the moment.

I tried to change MBR's 4-Byte drive ID (address 0x1B8 to 0x1BB)  with "fdisk" console ( key/command sequence : x i 0x1234ABCD p w ), which worked well within fdisk, but did not get written to real MBR, neither on a harddisk, nor on an USB Stick, I tested.  (Detailed description, see "Variant A" in my draft).
Command "i" seems to be very new ! If there is a writing convention to distinguish a bash script commandline parameter "i" of a program and  the "i" key within its console state, I don't know it up to now. I thought that ("sheltered") "(i)" would be understandable.

Which version of fdisk and on what platform (operating system) is this new "(i)" option available?

Did you use the (w) write to disk option before you exited from fdisk?  If so then perhaps there is a bug that should be logged with the fdisk team.

In the case of a move operation, gparted simply moves the partition block by block.  No additional processing is performed to determine the content of the block.
In the case of a resize operation, the ntfsresize command is called.  To find out how the file system is shrunk, you could either review the source code, or perhaps contact the ntfsprogs team.  Personally I have not reviewed the ntfsprogs source code.