1 Topic by Jim Tehma (edited by Jim Tehma 2011-05-13 00:24:23)

  • Jim Tehma
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Topic: [SOLVED] Set GParted not to "Round to cylinders"

I see the GParted changelog says "Added "Round to cylinders" check box for copy and move/resize" since version 0.3.8. I'm using gparted 0.7.0 to resize an NTFS partition and I can't see such a checkbox but when I click"Resize/Move" I see a pull-down menu labeled "Align to:" and one of the options is "None." Is selecting "None" the same thing as unchecking the "Round to cylinders" checkbox?

EDIT: I forgot to say I can't find the "Round to cylinders" check box anywhere. And the gparted 0.7.0 that I use is in the Knoppix 6.4.4 2011-1-30 Live CD.

Thanks,

Jim

2 Reply by Jim Tehma

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Re: [SOLVED] Set GParted not to "Round to cylinders"

I'll try to explain it more clearly:

My hard drive has a big 300GB partition with Windows 7. I want to shrink this to 40GB and create space for logical partitions to put linux and data. From what I understand windows 7 doesn't like it when the partition boundaries are changed. From the gparted manual:

If the partition is an operating system boot partition, then a move step might cause the operating system to fail to boot.

so you have to uncheck the "Round to cylinders" check box for copy and move/resize in gparted. I tried to that in the gparted 0.7.0 that was in the knoppix 6.4.4 2011-1-30 Live CD. After a lot of looking I couldn't see such a check box. But I saw an "Align to" pull-down menu with three options: MiB, Cylinder, None. Is selecting 'none' the same as unchecking the ""Round to cylinders" check box for copy and move/resize"?

I checked the alignment link in the gparted manual and it says:

Use None only if you have an in-depth knowledge of disk structure, partition tables, and boot records. This setting places partition boundaries relative to the end of any immediately preceding partition on the disk device. This setting is not guaranteed to reserve or respect space required for boot records.

this scared me a bit, I don't think I have "an in-depth knowledge of disk structure, partition tables, and boot records", so I thought I better ask first.

3 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [SOLVED] Set GParted not to "Round to cylinders"

First I highly recommend you use the latest version of GParted, currently v0.8.0.

The advice to "deselect round-to-cylinder" is no longer valid.  Newer versions of GParted will not move the start of a partition if you leave the "Free space preceding" value alone.

This would be the case if you shrink a partition by leaving the left hand side alone and reducing only the right hand side.

4 Reply by Jim Tehma (edited by Jim Tehma 2011-05-12 02:05:58)

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Re: [SOLVED] Set GParted not to "Round to cylinders"

Thanks for the reply.

gedakc wrote:

First I highly recommend you use the latest version of GParted, currently v0.8.0.

Next time I'll do so. I used 0.7.0 last week.

The advice to "deselect round-to-cylinder" is no longer valid.  Newer versions of GParted will not move the start of a partition if you leave the "Free space preceding" value alone.

This would be the case if you shrink a partition by leaving the left hand side alone and reducing only the right hand side.

I didn't touch the "Free space preceding" value at all. I didn't knew the partition won't move if you don't change the "Free space preceding" value though, and I checked the "None" option in the "Align to" menu. All went well.

I have one small question/suggestion. Isn't it confusing to the user to display the "Align to" menu if it's not needed? Don't you think it would be better to display the "Align to" menu only when a user changes the "Free space preceding" value? Or is the "Align to" value something different. Sorry if I said something that doesn't make sense!

And thank you for your work on GParted. It's a wonderful program.

Jim

EDIT: PS. Should I add [SOLVED] to the title? If so, how do I do that?

5 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [SOLVED] Set GParted not to "Round to cylinders"

You can mark the post as solved by editing the initial post and prefixing SOLVED in front of the title.