1 Topic by sinbadblue

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Topic: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

hi, I have a 250GB disk which is divided to 3 parts.

/dev/sda1  199GB for vista home
/dev/sda3  22GB for ubuntu
/dev/sda2  12GB for hp notebook recovery

i want to resize the first one so that moving some free space to the second one.

i installed gparted 0.3.5 through ubuntu package manager and launched it. i can see all the three partitions here. however, i can't operate those two ntfs partitions which have a warning says "Unable to read the contents of this filesystem! Because of this some operations may be unavailable." Actually, the only operations allowed are "delete" and "format".

i tried to mount the ntfs partition, it works. but when i back to gparted, the two ntfs partitions are there with a key symbel ( i guess it means protected or something like this). And now I can't do anything about them except unmount.



is there anyone who can help me? thx a lot

2 Reply by cmdr (edited by cmdr 2008-08-21 13:55:33)

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Hi,
Microsoft does not publicate specifications of its filesystems, but is constantly "improving" them. The "Gparted" -Team has to do "reverse-engeneering" to "stay tuned" with more or less success. So the first advice is to use always the newest distribution (0.3.8 at the moment). If you do NOT need to move a NTFS partition and VISTA is your OS, then use VISTA to shrink its partition. This is my second advice, because there are fewer risks to loose all (but anyway you should backup all important things before !). The disk space, you can get free, is limited by VISTA. Sometimes it's useful, shrinking the partition in two or more smaller steps. Do NOT forget to boot after EACH step and see that VISTA is still "alive" and can reorganize its filesystem on boot (not just get back to the partitioning !). Moving the other partitions is a task for "GParted". Do NOT mount partitions, which are to be altered by "GParted" (no lock symbol).

I assume, you want to grow the "UBUNTU" partition, which is the third and not the second (Recovery) partition.

But there is once again a big problem : the second partition holds the recovery data for your system. You will probably loose its function, if you move it. Especially if its activated by a function key on boot or has no obvious starting program in its root folder. If you have a Recovery CD/DVD, I would "sacrifice" it and use the free space too. This might however violate warranty conditions.

Hope, this helps a bit

cmdr

3 Reply by stormhead

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Hi!

This "strange" partition order may have emerged if the drive was originally split into only the Windows and the recovery partition (which occupy the first partition table entries). If the Windows partition is shrunk then and Ubuntu inatelled into the new free space, the Linux partition will be located between the Windows and the recovery partition (by LBA adresses), but it occupies the third partiton table entry. I have seen several systems partitioned like that...

On GParted and the NTFS partition: GParted (of any libparted-based tool) can not manipulate NTFS partitions directly; instead, it relies on a package named ntfsprogs for this. If you just installed GParted, but not ntfsprogs, you'll encounter a lot of functions that are not available on NTFS formatted partitions.
By the way - many other file systems are handled the same way by GParted; you need the appropriate tools installed in addition to GParted to have the maximum functionality available on NTFS, XFS, ReiseFS / Reiser4, JFS, ...

However, even if you install ntfsprogs (and this enables all the "crossed-out" opertations on your NTFS partitions), you should steill keep in mind what cmdr said about reverse engineering and NTFS features: Newer versions of ntfsprogs (and maybe of GParted, too) are more likely to work well on your NTFS partition as outdated versions. Thus, you'd probably better use the current GParted LiveCD (0.3.5 is a bit outdated)!

4 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Yes, ntfstools is necessary to work on ntfs partitions. You can try the supported filesystems table option in the GParted menu you installed. If ntfs is marked as unsupported, this means perhaps that you have to install ntfstools.
The livecd contains any necessary software to handle the supported partitions and is updated.

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

5 Reply by sinbadblue

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

cmdr wrote:

Hi,
Microsoft does not publicate specifications of its filesystems, but is constantly "improving" them. The "Gparted" -Team has to do "reverse-engeneering" to "stay tuned" with more or less success. So the first advice is to use always the newest distribution (0.3.8 at the moment). If you do NOT need to move a NTFS partition and VISTA is your OS, then use VISTA to shrink its partition. This is my second advice, because there are fewer risks to loose all (but anyway you should backup all important things before !). The disk space, you can get free, is limited by VISTA. Sometimes it's useful, shrinking the partition in two or more smaller steps. Do NOT forget to boot after EACH step and see that VISTA is still "alive" and can reorganize its filesystem on boot (not just get back to the partitioning !). Moving the other partitions is a task for "GParted". Do NOT mount partitions, which are to be altered by "GParted" (no lock symbol).

I assume, you want to grow the "UBUNTU" partition, which is the third and not the second (Recovery) partition.

But there is once again a big problem : the second partition holds the recovery data for your system. You will probably loose its function, if you move it. Especially if its activated by a function key on boot or has no obvious starting program in its root folder. If you have a Recovery CD/DVD, I would "sacrifice" it and use the free space too. This might however violate warranty conditions.

Hope, this helps a bit

cmdr

thanks for your advices. i will try the new distribution.
regarding VISTA shrink function, i tried it but just give me up to 2 GB space to free when there are over 40GB free on the partition.

well the name of ubuntu partition is sda3 but actually it is the second partition (physically). the disk was divided to VISTA OS and recovery when it came from manufacture. so i don't think it's a risk to resize between VISTA and ubuntu partition.

6 Reply by sinbadblue (edited by sinbadblue 2008-08-22 05:57:20)

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

stormhead wrote:

Hi!

This "strange" partition order may have emerged if the drive was originally split into only the Windows and the recovery partition (which occupy the first partition table entries). If the Windows partition is shrunk then and Ubuntu inatelled into the new free space, the Linux partition will be located between the Windows and the recovery partition (by LBA adresses), but it occupies the third partiton table entry. I have seen several systems partitioned like that...

On GParted and the NTFS partition: GParted (of any libparted-based tool) can not manipulate NTFS partitions directly; instead, it relies on a package named ntfsprogs for this. If you just installed GParted, but not ntfsprogs, you'll encounter a lot of functions that are not available on NTFS formatted partitions.
By the way - many other file systems are handled the same way by GParted; you need the appropriate tools installed in addition to GParted to have the maximum functionality available on NTFS, XFS, ReiseFS / Reiser4, JFS, ...

However, even if you install ntfsprogs (and this enables all the "crossed-out" opertations on your NTFS partitions), you should steill keep in mind what cmdr said about reverse engineering and NTFS features: Newer versions of ntfsprogs (and maybe of GParted, too) are more likely to work well on your NTFS partition as outdated versions. Thus, you'd probably better use the current GParted LiveCD (0.3.5 is a bit outdated)!

you're right about the partition labels.

and i will try ntfsprogs too. thanks for it. i'am a newbie about linux though i've worked in UNIX/LINUX system for years (as a developer but not admin) tongue


well, it is sad that ubuntu doesn't update their package list for gparted .

7 Reply by sinbadblue

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

omg, after installing ntfsprogs, i can resize the NTFS VISTA OS partition now! all the unused space.

wait, wait a second, i don't want to screw my laptop before weekend. i won't have time to fix it. let me try it 24 hours later. big_smile


Thanks a lot for all. I will update if it is working or any problem ( i wish not smile )

8 Reply by wesley_snipes

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

I want to resize my vista partition as well. My 750 GB hard drive is in 3 sections in Gparted.

Here are their rough sizes:
1mb- unpartitioned
620gb- ntfs (vista)
93gb- unpartitioned (by windows shrink function)

I want to shrink the Vista partition another 200 GB so I have 420 for vista and 293 unpartitioned so I can install Windows XP and Linux Ubuntu. I don't know what the 1mb thing is for and am afraid to change it. How does ntfsprogs work? I assume it's part of Gparted... Should I get it?

9 Reply by stormhead

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Hi!

Don't worry about the 1 MByte chunk at the beginning of the disk - this just means that the first partition on your drive does not start at the beginning of the disk, but 1 MByte later. In theory, you could reclaim this "lost" MByte and add it to your first partition - however, this would require massive move operations on your partition, and is likely not worth the risk (what is one lost MByte - compared to 750.000 MByte of total capacity?)
You definitely need the ntfsprogs package to resize your NTFS partition. If you want to run GParted from a Linux system you installed yourself, you'll have to install it; if you use the LiveCD instead, you don't have to worry about filesystem-specific tools - they are already included.

10 Reply by wesley_snipes

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

I am using gparted Live on a cd and I must admit that I am slightly confused with this program as it is new to me. The one mb section is not a concern to me, but it complicates the shrinking of my ntfs partition. When I first checked it out, just trying to understand the program, I selected the ntfs partition and chose to shrink it to the desired size and was confused to see that if I did this, some unallocated space would be moved up to the 1mb part, and some down to the 93gb unallocated part. I tried taking a screen shot, but I don't know where to find the root folder, if there is one in Vista. I just need to figure out how to shrink vista's installation so I have the space available to make 2 partitions on. Should I allow the unallocated space to be divided like this or can I create one section of unallocated space?

When I went to download ntfsprogs, I got all these options. What do I need?

File name                         Version                                 Released                              Option

Kernel NTFS Module      el4 2.6.9-78.0.1                   August 5, 2008                         Download
LDM Documentation         0.2                                 June 19, 2002                       Download
LDM Driver and Tools        0.0.8                              August 9, 2002                    Download
NTFS Documentation         0.5                             June 8, 2004                             Download
NTFS Driver for Linux 2.4  2.1.6b (kernel 2.4.26)     May 1, 2004                             Download
NTFS Tools and Library        2.0.0                             September 28, 2007                Download

11 Reply by stormhead

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Hi!

As I wrote before: You don't have to download anything, the ntfsprogs package already is included in the GParted LiveCD (at least if you use the "official" LiveCD available from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ ).
The screen shots will not be stored on your Windows XP partition - they will be stored on the filesystem craeted by GParted in your computer's RAM; you'll find it in the /root directory existing there.
At the moment I can't write a manual for getting the screenshot from there to a floppy or a USB key, but I'll try to do so as soon as possible.

12 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

To save the screenshots on floppy disk or usb memory, there are 2 links in the documentation page:
Save gparted_details.htm file
Make screenshots

You have to mount the floppy or usb and copy pictures from the / to there.
This is done in a terminal window.

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

13 Reply by sinbadblue

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

i burned the live cd, bootup, resize the ntfs partition, grown my ubuntu partition,

after around 2 hours, it is done. perfect  big_smile

thanks all !

14 Reply by class413

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Re: [SOLVED]Unable to operate on my vista ntfs partition

Problem solved! smile

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