1 Topic by ouch8s

  • ouch8s
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  • Registered: 2007-12-15
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Topic: problems with ntfs

i have a 500gb disk i have been using as one big ntfs partition for storage.  i need to get rid of one of my harddrives, so i would like to carve out a 20gb partition from this drive to mirror my boot disk onto, and then use this new partition to boot from.

using the livecd, i change to the drive in question, select the partition, and try and shrink it.  gparted starts but almost immediately (within a few seconds) throws an error:
"Shrink /dev/sda1 from 465GB to 446" (red mark)
"calibrate /dev/sda1" (green/ok)
"calculate new size and position of /dev/sda1 (red mark)
(expand)
"requested start: 41030010
requested end: 976768064
requested size: 935738055 (446.19GB)" (Black X)

i read somewhere about the importance of defragging ntfs before editing partitions but this computer doesn't have a working xp install anymore - is there a livecd defragging option?

any other thoughts on how to make this work?

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
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  • Registered: 2007-05-25
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Re: problems with ntfs

According to the ntfsresize documentation (ntfsresize is the specific Linux software that performs resizing operation), defragging isn't really necessary, because it can relocate files written in the resizing area. Sometimes it helped, but I don't know if it was something other.

It is necessary to shutdown windows properly, otherwise the filesystem remains "dirty". Could you perhaps connect the disk to any working windows system to run chkdsk /F ? 

There is also "ntfsfix /dev/... " you can run from the terminal (from the gparted livecd). It fixes some ntfs errors. Perhaps this can help.

You could try to use another gparted livecd version. Some users solved ntfs problems using 0.3.4-8, or -7 or -6 versions (even 0.3.4-2 for someone) instead  of 0.3.4-10. You could also try Parted-magic, that uses gparted too but uses other boot and detect system.

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