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Re: [LUG] Resizing partitions.

 

 People are really making this sound a lot more complicated than it
actually is - I have done this more times than I care to remember with
no issues that aren't easily fixed. Your steps are:

Install a third party de-fragmentation tool in windows (auslogic
freeware is fine) and do several runs. Windows native defrag is
worthless so your NTFS partitions *will* have system and reserved files
misallocated randomly all over their available space: when partition
tools such as window's native disk management MMC snap-in or gparted
fail to reduce a partition by as much as you want/expect it is because
they are hitting these rogue file allocations and failing to move them.
Non-native defragging effectively zeroes out all the slack space and
consolidates file towards the start of the partition. The same thing can
be achieved on linux ext partitions with "cat /dev/zero > /delete.me &&
sync && rm /delete.me && sync".

Once you have effectively cleaned all the garbage sectors your choice of
disk partition tools will be able to shrink your partition(s) properly
rather than returning short values. Your next task is to optionally nuke
any pointless recovery partitions, providing you have install media of
course. If you don't have install media, you should get some and nuke
the recovery partition anyway. Don't touch the ~100Mb system reserved
partition at the start of your first hard disk, windows
vista/7/8/2003/2008 will totally fail without it.

Gparted is *the* tool of choice - it has never failed me in literally
thousands of operations. Resize your windows partition to your chosen
extent and then resize your existing linux partition(s) to fill your
newly freed space accordingly. Reboot.

Windows will quite possibly fail to load at this stage, which is sadly
quite normal. This is why you will have installed the recovery console
earlier. Alternatively just use your install media and boot to the
"repair windows" option which combined with a full chkdsk, will make
windows boot normally again. Sometimes, rarely, you will have to do both
even though you have merely resized the windows partition rather than
actually moved it. Have your favourite rescue CD on hand - the gparted
CD will also serve for this - just in case you need to do any further
fiddling with the bootloader: ubuntu, which isn't very good anymore,
will also sometimes fail to boot cleanly after disk resize operations.
If you're not particularly good with command line voodoo or manually
controlling GRUB prompts the supergrub rescue/boot CDs are excellent for
finding and booting operating systems with trashed boot loaders. If
necessary, boot via live CD, chroot into your existing ubuntu install
and reinstall GRUB.

It's extremely unlikely that you will need to do anything other than
manually defrag, resize partitions from the gparted live CD, and reboot.
Obviously it should go without saying that you *must* backup all
important data before any disk partitioning operations. Even with the
best tools, guru-level skills and 100% confidence, if you get a power
cut in the middle of a resize operation you will probably lose everything.

Cheers,

Mat


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