1 Topic by DCK (edited by DCK 2007-07-17 17:34:03)

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Topic: [Solved] Using Gpart with a recovery disk

Hello everyone

I'm typing this on my shiny new Dell notebook. I've spent much of the day installing apps configuring stuff, and I've come to the conclusion that Windows Vista is really annoying and restricting on some levels. The most annoying part was that my 110 GB Windows partition could only be resized to some 70 GB by the built-in disk manager. After Googling around for solutions I ended up at a Gparted how-to.

I really want to try resizing my partitions, but the how-to describes how you need a full Windows Vista disk to repair the installation after resizing. Unfortunately, part of Dell's 'service' is that your Vista installation exists of merely a recovery partition on your hard disk and a seperate repair DVD - not a Windows Vista disk.

Now my question is, will this Dell repair construction be able to restore what Gpart messes up in the installation? Does anybody have any experience with this? What files would there have to be on the recovery disk for it to work? I really don't want to break the Windows Installation in the first days, but I don't want to keep that ridicilously huge OS partition either...

Thanks in advance smile

EDIT: I'm sorry, the Dell disk seems to be a full Windows Vista disk after all; I was mislead by the Dell print on the disk and the fact that there was a Recovery partition installed (why would they do that?). I guess it should be safe to attempt Gpart now, right? Could somebody tell me the files that are needed on the disk, just to be safe?

Thanks

2 Reply by class413

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Re: [Solved] Using Gpart with a recovery disk

I think it's better to try with the liveCD. The most recent version is 0.3.4-8. You can download it from the main gparted site:
http://gparted.sf.net/
For this, you download the ISO file (around 50MB) and you burn it in a CDRW or CDR disk as "ISO image file" (not just in a data file). This CD is bootable (you have to check in the BIOS that the CDROM or DVDROM drive is before the hard drive in the boot sequence).


There is already the following page about vista resizing:
http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=431

I understand that you already used the built-in vista partition tool (I don't know it, I learn that they added such a tool in their system after 15 or more years! ).

There are a few points to take into account:

- Before resizing, you need to defragment the partition. It's even better to defragment with the virtual memory disabled. The swap file can be anywhere in the partition. Furthermore, some files are non-movable by the win system (marked in green), and gparted can't move them. (you have to re-enable it after).

gparted isn't file manager, it works on the partitions and filesystems, not on the files. So, it can't shrink a partition more than existing files permit.

- As far as I know, Dell puts a hidden partition in the hard drive, with  hardware drivers. That is perhaps because its hardware isn't always standard (they often use some modified OEM versions for hardware or firmware), so sometimes the drivers from manufacturers don't work). That's why, if you find such a partition, don't delete it!

As you have the installation disk for vista, you have very small risk. Even in the case anything goes very bad and you need to reinstall vista, you can then make new partitions in your drive as you like (keeping the dell partition nevertheless) and install vista in the new partition.

Please, read carefully the documentation.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

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

3 Reply by DCK (edited by DCK 2007-07-17 12:37:22)

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Re: [Solved] Using Gpart with a recovery disk

Thanks for the reply, but that's not really what I meant; I know how to prepare the disks for resizing and not to touch the seperate partition Dell made (the driver idea is a logical explanation for its existence).

Basically my question is, is it safe to use the Live CD method with a disk I'm not 100% sure that is a Windows Vista CD as described in the how-to? I want to be really careful with it as I don't want to brick (or void warranty of) my new (and very expensive) laptop.

By the way, that built-in Vista tool is really terrible indeed tongue It's the only method on Vista to resize partitions but it puts insane limitations on it. There's 12 GBs of data on my disk and it sets a size minimum of 68 GB...

Sorry for not being clear in my opening post.

4 Reply by DCK

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Re: [Solved] Using Gpart with a recovery disk

I made an attempt anyway and the LiveCD worked very well; I didn't even require the Vista disc. Thanks for the help.

5 Reply by class413

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Re: [Solved] Using Gpart with a recovery disk

Good news! smile

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