1 Topic by theschles (edited by theschles 2007-04-15 21:06:53)

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Topic: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

Hi all.  I have a WD Premium Edition 500GB Firewire / USB2 drive.  Originally it came with one big FAT32 partition.  Using the SystemRescueCD, I scaled that back about 20 to 30 GB and put in a NTFS partition. 

I'm running out of space on the FAT32 partition, and barely using the NTFS partition, so I used the SystemRescueCD, shrank the NTFS to about 13GB (opening space for the FAT32 partition to expand), and went to expand the FAT32 partition.

At which point gparted said that the FAT32 partition failed the normal checking process.

CHKDSK reports no problems on either partition.

I got my hands on a Partition Magic 8 install, and in that program it appeared that the only thing I could do is adjust where that FAT32 partition started - I could not expand it (note, in hindsight, I didn't try contracting it, but I have a feeling it wouldn't let me anyway).  UPDATE: Cannot contract the FAT32 partition, but Partition Magic will let me contract or expand the NTFS partition.

I copied some stuff away and freed up about 59GB in the FAT32 partition.  I'm now defragmenting the partition, but I doubt that'll fix whatever is holding up the resize.

Here are the dump and save details files from trying to just check the FAT32 partition:

http://www.electronicfiles.net/files/7497/gparted.zip

Ideas?  Thank you in advance for your help.

- Phil

PS - Anybody out there?  Somebody else posted around the same time and he/she has 32 replies already, whereas I have....0...

2 Reply by theschles (edited by theschles 2007-04-15 17:38:22)

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

Here's the dosfsck output from the command:

dosfsck 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
dosfsck 2.11, 12 Mar 2005, FAT32, LFN
Checking we can access the last sector of the filesystem
Boot sector contents:
System ID "MSWIN4.1"
Media byte 0xf8 (hard disk)
       512 bytes per logical sector
     32768 bytes per cluster
        88 reserved sectors
First FAT starts at byte 45056 (sector 88)
         2 FATs, 32 bit entries
  57012224 bytes per FAT (= 111352 sectors)
Root directory start at cluster 2 (arbitrary size)
Data area starts at byte 114069504 (sector 222792)
  14251193 data clusters (466983092224 bytes)
63 sectors/track, 255 heads
        63 hidden sectors
912299157 sectors total
malloc:Cannot allocate memory


Is there a minimum amount of memory required by dosfsck?  I have 160 MB of RAM on this PC...and come to think of it...I did the original resizing on a PC with 2GB of RAM...

3 Reply by LarryT

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

First of all I am sorry nobody answered you before : it shouldn't be.
Secondly you shouldn't use different Partitions tools : they usually work in different ways.

BTW, sysresccd is surely a good product, but we don't support it here.
So go to the sysresccd forum and ask for help there please.

Larry
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Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

4 Reply by theschles

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

LarryT - thank you for responding.  I just tried Partition Magic to see if it would give me more info - it did not.

My previous 2 resizes was using gparted.  I'm trying now to use gparted - which comes with SystemRescueCD.  This appears to be a gparted issue.  Why do you even have separate gparted and liveCD forums if not to support gparted installs on non-liveCD platforms?

5 Reply by LarryT

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

theschles wrote:

LarryT - thank you for responding.  I just tried Partition Magic to see if it would give me more info - it did not.

Ok this is safe, so.

theschles wrote:

My previous 2 resizes was using gparted.  I'm trying now to use gparted - which comes with SystemRescueCD.  This appears to be a gparted issue.  Why do you even have separate gparted and liveCD forums if not to support gparted installs on non-liveCD platforms?

It sounds you don't understand one thing. GParted running on real machines run in a special environment, ok ?
Running from within a livecd is quite different. I know very well the guy who build sysresccd. and I know he uses some other soft that I don't use on the livecd. So you can understand I may interfere with GParted.
So to be sure it is a GParted issue I need to be sure you are running GParted from within the livecd I built.

DO you only guess what work it would be if I also havd to find out what problem comes in this livecd and this other one and ... since GParted is also on RIP and many other livecd (even ubuntu is running a bugged GParted version (0.2.5-5) !

Is it okay ?

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

6 Reply by LarryT

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

BTW if you post on GParted this means you are running GParted from a real system/machine not from a livecd :-/

Larry
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7 Reply by theschles

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

Ah gotcha.  In desperation, I popped the drive onto a kubuntu 6.06 installation, installed gparted (apparently version 0.1) via adept, and resized the FAT32 partition from there (gparted 0.1 actually had no exclamation point splat regarding the FAT32 partition, but there was a red-X delete icon on the NTFS partition).  Windows found no errors when I scandisked the newly resized FAT32 partition, so I think all is well.

In the future, I will keep in mind that I need to have a non-LiveCD platform (other than gparted LiveCD) in order to post questions here.

I'm not sure if I should mark this post as "SOLVED", as the original situation was never solved.  Could you advise please?

8 Reply by LarryT

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Re: Cannot resize a FAT32 partition - fails during disk check [SOLVED]

I think you 'd better file a bug if your are sure it is. Anyway your problem is solved and then you should change the title with [SOLVED].
Like I said, running livecd is quite different from running GParted from within a linux system installed on hard drive. So, question regarding GParted running on hard drive can be posted here. Regarding GParted-livecd questions may be posted on the right place not very fare from here :-p

Larry
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Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)