1 Topic by db042188

  • db042188
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Topic: newbie looking for a little direction

Hi.  I'm suddenly faced with using GParted for the first time after buying a used disk that "was partitioned with unix".  I'm on windows xp.  I just wanted a simple backup device with one partition that would be mapped to a letter just like any other device.

My understanding so far is that if I download the .iso file at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted … ve-stable/   from under the gparted-live-stable/0.5.1-1 folder, I'll have an app and all things that it depends on to do a number of disk related things. 

My understanding is that this app will allow me to partition my used disk as FAT32 and that I can then turn around and use XP to repartition as NTFS.

I've never heard of an iso file before and feel overwhelmed so far trying to cut to the chase in the documentation I'm reading.  What will I do after the iso file is downloaded?  Should I download it to my c: drive?  Will I double click it to start the app?  Will the app be really friendly to dummies like me who want to do something so simple?  If XP doesnt see this drive as mapped, how will the gparted app know what device I'm trying to prepare?

2 Reply by db042188 (edited by db042188 2010-02-18 17:27:49)

  • db042188
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Re: newbie looking for a little direction

i'm starting to get it after reading the post at http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=13947 .  Is there a doc that condenses the steps I'll need to follow after my pc boots off this cd?  Perhaps one that just gives me 4 or 5 steps I might follow to get to the promised land?  I'm still curious how gparted will see this external device.

3 Reply by class413

  • class413
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Re: newbie looking for a little direction

GParted cannot run under mswindows. It is a Linux program.
The iso file is an image for a bootable cd that boots its own operating system and runs GParted.
You need to burn the iso file on an empty cdr or cdrw disc (as iso image, not as any usual data cd). Then you can boot the computer from that cd and have GParted running. To boot from cd, you need to adjust the boot priority in the computer BIOS, so that the cd-drive or dvd-drive is above the computer hard drive.

GParted sees the external hard drives in the same manner as the internal ones. In the GParted window, you can select the drive in question and see the existing partitions, and respecting file systems, size and free space in them. You are able to delete them and make new ones. If you use xp, you need very probably ntfs partitions. After creating the new partition(s), you need to boot into xp, that will detect them and give them letters. However, I don't know if this will be automatic. If no, you need to open the disk manager (under "manage" menu), and give letters your self.

You don't need to format as fat32 and then change into ntfs, you can go directly to ntfs. If you need fat32, then perhaps you need the GParted livecd, that can make fat32 partitions of any size, instead of xp that doesn't do more than 32 GiB.

If you need to just delete the old partitions and make new ntfs ones, I think that you don't need GParted, as very probably this can be done from the xp disk management. xp doesn't understand the content of unix partitions, but I hope it can delete them.

Another point is the type of the partition table. XP understands the msdos partition tables. If the drive was formatted into another type, then xp wouldn't understand that there is anything in the drive. In this case, GParted is able to make a new partition table (choose msdos type). Be careeful, this command deletes the very basic catalogue of the drive, so be sure that you do it on the right drive!!

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