Re: Best way to shrink Windows on new laptop?
On 31 Jan 2007, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 09:41:07PM +0000, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> > On 31 Jan 2007, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 04:15:25PM +0000, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> > > > On 31 Jan 2007, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I failed to resize the Windows partition (Windows XP) with both the
> > > > Debian installer disk and qparted. They appeared to work but at the end
> > > > the partition was still the same size.
> > >
> [...]
> > >
> > > As I remember the process, you select the ntfs partition, resize it
> > > (it will prompt you with the minimum size), wait wait wait, and then
> > > you are presented with a new partitioning screen with lovely free
> > > space. How did your experience differ?
> > >
> > > A
> >
> > Nothing at all seemed to happen with the Debian installer.
>
> details here would help. my memory is that you select the partition,
> and press enter (doing this from memory here...), select resize, enter
> the size and away you go.
>
This what I did. There was a prolonged pause, and then the original
screen came up; the disk size was the same as before.
> > So I tried
> > with ntfsresize from Knoppix. This completed satisfactorily but the
> > partition was still the same size. It said I was next supposed to delete
> > and remake the partition with cfdisk, which I did. It was now the
> > correct size and type but Windows would no longer start.
>
> yeah, probably the cfdisking confused its boot. what exactly happened
> with the windows boot? nothing at all? or did it try to come up and
> fail?
Yes, it tried to boot but failed, and then I was offered various
alternatives such as reverting to an earlier instance of Windows,
booting in command mode and other stuff; none of these worked.
The documentation for ntfsresize does tell you to use cfdisk or fdisk to
delete and restore the partion, but it still seems odd to me.
>
> you are correct in that ntfsresize *just* resizes the file system and
> not the partition. Knoppix includes other partitioners. I've used
> qtparted with success. It will call ntfsresize as needed. you might
> try that.
>
I've done it from Knoppix, Ubuntu, and Gparted Live, without success.
Anthony
--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Linux Gnu-Debian
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
on-line books and sceptical articles)
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