I've chkdsk'd and defragged, and it makes sense that that would help. The remaining problem is that "partman" doesn't seem to allow me to set the size of a partition. I can select a partition and set its type (ext3, fat32, etc.), but when I select the line with the size, "partman" asks if I want to go ahead and make the changes, even though I haven't entered a new size yet. How do I enter a new size for the partition?
Could I have an out-of-date version? I downloaded Debian about a week ago. Could I have unsupported hardware? I'm trying to install on a new Dell 3000 with a Pentium 4, enough memory and disk.
Again, thanks to Don and Frans for replying. I expect I'm only a small step away from installing, and the only reason I'm having trouble at all is that I'm trying for a dual-boot system. It's made a bit harder by the fact that Dell doesn't ship Windows or apps CD-ROMs with the machine, so if my existing XP installation is destroyed I can't get it back. I have the Win2K CD-ROM and will be happy to go back to 2000 if need be, but Dell did include some useful apps (e.g., PaintShop Pro).
- ced On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 20:11:09 -0700, Don Wright <wdinst@wricomp.net> wrote:
On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 02:57:30 +0200, Frans Pop <aragorn@tiscali.nl> wrote:Problem: I need to create new partitions for Linux. Various sections of the Debian docs (e.g., "3.5.1.1. Lossless Repartitioning When Starting From DOS, Win-32 or OS/2") appear to claim that I can resize my existing NTFS partition, leaving room for my Linux partitions.
The paragraph in the manual you want is this [1]:If your machine has a FAT or NTFS filesystem, as used by DOS and Windows,you can wait and use Debian installer's partitioning program to resize the filesystem.
One thing that has been helpful at Installfests is to use Windows one last time to delete as much garbage (temp files, IE cache, old .ISOs etc.) as possible and then defrag the partition before rebooting with the Debian CD. The partition resizer in Sarge seems happiest when it has plenty of clear area at the end of the drive to work with. --Don