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Re: Howto repartition a fat32 disk of win xp?



Joris Huizer wrote:

Hello,

Currently I don't have my own computer available and the one I have acces to is the one my dad uses; I need a compiler and openGL/glut and I can't really find anything usefull so I want to install linux debian!!

The problem is, this computer has a 40GB disk with XP installed and we don't want to loose a file on it - the defrag program says no defragmentation is needed as the defragmentation rate is low or something - and I need this to be accessible today so I can't wait for that program

How can I resize the 40GB partition 10 GB smaller (to add new partitions) without any data loss? I only have the debian woody 3.0r1 installation CS's available.

I hope you can help,

Thank you

Joris

I don't know anything about Windows XP but if it has scandisk, do the following:

Once you start, do not attempt to do anything else.

1.  Do a scan disk to get rid of junk.
2.  Check how many bytes your XP currently occupies.
3. Do a defragmentation regardless of being told it isn't needed. This is to totally compact spread out data to prevent losing it. 4. Estimate how much total space to allocate for your new XP partition. Allow for future additions. 30 MB seems much more than enough. 5. Use WinXP's fdisk to set the upper boundary for your C: partition according to step 4.

If you follow the steps carefully, your Windows XP will be compacted into a smaller partition on your harddrive without loss of data and you will have created free space for a Linux partition.

It might help to do a dry run of fdisk to familarize yourself with how to use it. Don't attempt to make any permanent changes in your current XP partition unless you've done the defragmentation--otherwise you could cut off some XP data when you set the upper boundary of the C: partition.

Does your dad know what you want to do to his computer?

GL    alex



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