1 Topic by beetle_bailey

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Topic: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

I am trying to help my father with his computer and not quite sure what is going on with this thing.  Here is what he has:

A 112 GB hard drive with a 5 GB EISA partition...not exactly sure what that is for but have seen some documentation about system restore etc.... I would like to remove it if possible but that isn't the priority

A 15 GB windows XP partition that is MAXED out!!

A 90ish partition that has a few files on it...I deleted this one hoping to resize the windows partition using this space.

A whole separate 150 GB hard drive that holds some multimedia files.

My problem is, when I pull up Gparted and try to resize this C drive, it doesn't allow me to do it.  It doesn't give an error or any other kind of message...just doesn't allow me to make the partition any bigger.  I have used GParted several times but have never had this problem before.

Please help me!!

Thanks in advance

2 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

Please, be more exact about the computer (hardware, drives) and the partitions. How did you delete that partition?

Use the latest liveCD, and write here all information from Gparted about partitions.

Please, do the same from the windows Disk management.


Then, we can go further. May be there is some extended or hidden partition in the disk.

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

3 Reply by beetle_bailey

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

Hi,
Thanks for responding.  I deleted that other partition with windows disk management. In windows disk management it shows :
Disk 0 111.79 GB
these are the three partitions that show up within that disk:
far left, No drive letter: Basic NTFS Healthy(EISA configuration) 5.01 GB 17% free
middle, C: Basic NTFS Healthy(system) 15.01 GB 19% free
right, 91.77 GB free space

Since my last post, I disabled the paging file and freed up a little space with some programs and defragged a few times.  I am going to try again but if that doesn't work I would appreciate your insight. Thanks again.

4 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

1. The 5GB partition could be a special recovery partition with diagnostic tools, hardware drivers etc. It is perhaps "hidden". Leave it as is smile

2. This is what windows show. Gparted gives much more information. That's why I asked what Gparted. Boot up the computer with GParted, please, and tell me information reported by Gparted on the partitions. There is a table under the graph. You can right-click and press "information" too.

3. You could try to use a new tool that comes with windows, and that can resize windows partitions. I don't remember the name of the program. Perhaps you need to restart with the installation cd or dvd in the driver and choose recovery console. Perhaps you can find more information in the windows help system (not sure at all, because windows help gives all things we know well and don't need lol )

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

5 Reply by RobAGD (edited by RobAGD 2007-12-07 02:44:33)

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

I am having the same kind of problem.

I am using the LiveCD, I tried to mount a usb drive and it wouldnt allow me to mount or unmount the hda1 or the sda1 ( usb )

Considering I am running from the CD and I would need to save to some media other than the ram drive in root.

I have a 160gb HD in my laptop ( I hard to start from grub ) the boot/first partition is NTFS and is about 40gb leaving a large chunk of the HD unallocated.

I can see and get basic info on the /dev/hda1 but it fails every time I try to grow teh partition. There is no help on the livecd, the help files dont mention anything that I am not doing. I  opened cli window and tried to unmount the hda1 ti see if that was an issue.

I orginally tried to use Knoppix LiveCD but the gpart was the 0.2.5 ( I think ) and it deidnt show any flags and I came across a post that that version didnt play nice with ntfs.

So suggestions ?

-Robert

6 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

The livecd doesn't mount any partition.
With usb drives: sometimes other usb devices (keyboard, mouse, etc) can cause detection problems.

If you run the 0.3.4-10 version, you could try some of the previous versions, like 0.3.4-6 or 0.3.4-7.

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

7 Reply by RobAGD

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

Class413 - Thanks for the reply

What I am not really getting is that I cant see what the real issue is and why its not resizing the partition. The system didnt boot with the USB stick in the laptop it was added when I tried to save the html report file. No other usb devices plugged in.

Would the unallocated partition need to be formatted ? or have an extened partition made before hand ? I am a bit confused on some aspects of this in reguards to NTFS stuff on te linux side of things ( fyi last time I USED linux to any extent was just before 2.4 kernel went stable release ) so I am shaking off a bit of rust.

Thanks again for your help.

-Robert

8 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

Extended partitions are used when we need to make more partitions than the only 4 primary ones allowed by the intel-type model. So, creating an extended partition makes possible to add more partitions later. But, you need just to grow the system partition. So, there is no need to create partitions, unless you plan to use them for some purpose.

- You can run checkdisk from windows. It often detects and fixes fileesystem errors. You have to shut down windows properly, otherwise the partition remains "dirty" and ntfsresize refuses to proceed.

- Did you check the hard disk for errors? I mean not just with the usual windows tools, that check just the partition, but with some tool provided by the hard disk manufacturer in its web page. Sometimes, bad sectors can cause similar problems.

- What gives fdisk for this disk?

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

9 Reply by RobAGD

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

ok I did the windows fdisk and no issues everything went through fine.

I have not tried the disk manufactures tools yet.

What switchs would you suggest from from within linux to check the drive ?

-R

10 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

CHKDSK /F
and
CHKDSK /F /R

This checks the partition space only, not the disk areas outside partitions.

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

11 Reply by RobAGD

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

ok, 0.3.4-8 worked just peachie, so something in the -10 is angery. I thought I would test something out and only had done the chkdisk from WinXp on reboot no issues there. So When I booted to the new livecd I tried to grow the partition and it just did it like it should.

Now to igure out why -10 is angery

Thanks for the help Class

-R

12 Reply by class413

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Re: trouble resizing a windows partition...Please help

Laptop computers often use customized hardware. That's why they are harder to support than desktop ones.

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