1 Topic by johnxtampa (edited by johnxtampa 2007-07-17 21:44:40)

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Topic: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

On a Dell 2600 Server, I ran Gparted and on the surface everything seemed to come out just fine.  I have the unusual luxury of this being an "extra" server, hence I can experiment with ease, with nothing of value to lose.

It's a Windows 2003 server.  After running Gparted and successfully resizing, a couple odd things show up.  The partitions are resized, and the boot partition is just fine.  Being a Dell, there is also the system partition for Dell diagnostics.  However, the third partition is RAW, no longer NTFS, and I also had to go into Disk Management within Windows to assign a drive letter to it.

Files that I had put on the partition are still there.

Any ideas?  Thanks in advance

2 Reply by johnxtampa

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Re: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

Ok, this is a bit of an unusual solution... since I didn't do anything... I'll leave the original post and change to FIXED, although I suspect this isn't the normal/expected outcome....

ChkDsk ran, I suppose only on the C drive after the initial restart/run of Gparted.

After running for about 30 minutes, Windows came back and said new hardware detected, please restart.  When I restarted, it ran ChkDsk on W (the second partition), and now, after that happened, it's NTFS now.

So, I suppose I'll call that fixed?

As a sidenote... (keep in mind the extra server factor)... I did decrease one partition and increase a second within the same run of Gparted... Is it safer to reduce one partition first, the increase the other partition in a separate run of GParted?

Thanks

3 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

Did you follow the documentation about NTFS resizing?
After resizing an NTFS partition you have to reboot to w!ndows at least 2 or 3 times for filesystem check and adjustment.

I think you used a Gparted LiveCD. What shows the LiveCD now?

How do you understand that files are still there? (It's the most probable, if you didn't format the partition).
Did you fix it with any other tool?
(I think there are some windows tools too, from the "recovery console").

In any case, a very good tool to fix partitions problems is "TestDisk".

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

4 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

Oh, I see that you already found the solution !

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

5 Reply by johnxtampa

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Re: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

Thanks for the reply.

What was happening in my case (I've retested a couple times since) was that after resizing partitions with GParted, when I went back into Windows 2003 Server R2, only the C (boot) partition still had a Drive Letter.  What would have been the second partition didn't have a Drive letter, and was labeled "Raw" in Disk Management.

I rebooted several times, but the second partition never automatically got checked by the filesystem. 

AFTER I assigned a drive letter to the still Raw partition, then I could see the test directories I had put on that partition.  Then, when I restarted Windows, then it scanned/checked the second partition, and when the system restarted, the second partition was intact, labeled as NTFS, the previously assigned Volume name back, and the data still there.

Anyway, Gparted came through just fine... I'm not sure if my situation was a fluke or just normal, but I thought I'd contribute to the body of knowledge with a followup from my situation... thanks again!

6 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED] NTFS partition resized successfully, but now RAW, not NTFS

30 minutes for the chkdsk?  It usually takes 2-3 minutes, or so.

Please, tell me: within the "Disk Management" did the 2 partitions have the right size (even without a letter) ? I see that usually the bar graph with the partitions gives the right size, but the values in the table on the upper part of the screen are wrong.

A tip is that between ntfs partitions (or before each ntfs partition) a small free space of at lease 8KB must be left.


Another tip is that, if the partitions look right within gparted, the filesystem is corrected if we repeat partition resizing by a small amout, i.e. something like 0.5 MB. Anyway, I think it is more secure to resize each partition separately (at least for the ntfs) with reboots and checks just after, before to proceed to the next one. I mean that  there are too many things that can go wrong in such complex systems, that it is better to go the more secure way. Partition editing isn't a job we do everyday (except, perhaps, Larry! smile ), so it's better to eventually go more slowly and more secure.

Thank you very much for your details and explanations!

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***