[SOLVED] Strange 'gparted' window!

I finally found the following solution that worked (I think):

- I boot from the livecd with the VESA option from the initial boot menu.
- I select the default options for keyboard and language (press just ENTER).
- After the booting process, I'm into a black screen with a gparted window, not fully functional.
- I then press Control+Alt+Backspace, to kill X.
- A few seconds later I get a terminal screen (a text screen) with a "gparted" prompt.
(If there is no prompt, I think it appears by pressing the ENTER key.
- I enter the command "exit" (I type exit and press ENTER).
- Then, I go to a new graphical colour screen with the right window and icons.

Sometimes, I need to give "exit" a second time. I don't remember exactly why, but it works for me.

I used it in that last weekend to shrink the ntfs xphome partition, with absolute success. The shrinking process was as described in the Documentation.
From the initial size of 300 GB I made it 125 GB ntfs,
I created a new partition (FAT32) 140 GB, to use as data partition, and
left 35 GB unallocated in the middle of the disk, to put there Linux partitions I plan to install.

I did not only 2 but 3 or 4 reboots after resizing the ntfs, because I had a message that the system intalled some new device. Anyway, XP work.

I don't know if FAT32 is the best solution for a data partition (readable by both XP and Linux), because a 140GB partition in FAT32  has a minimum allocation block of 16KB instead of 4KB for the ntfs.

Thanks for this nice software, even if it is not always easy to make it work   I'm sure I'll use it often!

I didn't try any older version
(I discovered Gparted few time ago, and saw that last version worked well with ntfs, that was my first object actually).

I can download an older version of the livecd in a cd-rw disk and try. Which is the version to try?

I tested this morning the 0.3.4-6 LiveCD.

On my E6600 Core duo, where I have the problem I describe above, I had *no problem!*  Booting with the first (default) option, with default keyb+language, I had gparted running on the appropriate colour screen. It checked my disk and found my partitions and unallocated space (created by gparted, anyway).

I tested 0.3.4-6 and 0.3.4-7 in my sister's computer too (pentium 1800MHZ, about 5 or 6 years old, with 2 IDE HDs and 2 IDE optical drives, with Radeon graphics card, I think 8500, good card at the time. Motherboard: Gigabyte, I think. Big Hitatchi 19" old good CRT monitor).
The results were the same (well, the gparted windows on screen were bigger because of the different resolutions supported by cards and screens).
With 0.3.4-6 I had gparted directly, with 0.3.4-7 I had to do the artifact with control-alt-backspace -> return to text terminal screen -> give "exit" -> have the good desktop open+gparted launched and running.

Nevertheless, the following occurred when I stopped the system, in that second computer: after pressing the "Eject & Reboot" option to leave, there was not the drive containing the livecd open (E: for win), but the other drive (D: for win)! The E: drive was locked during the powerdown process until a little before the reboot.

So, it seems that something changed from 6 to 7, that causes the problem. For any other information about the systems, M/B, bios etc, I can give all you need.