Arch Linux

Zephirias

Member

From: Pennsylvania, USA

Registered: 2004-04-26

Posts: 179

Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

I'm planning to dual-boot this comp here with Arch and Win2000, but I'm not too sure on how I'd do it in the install. Any valid help on this? It's just one huge partition of almost 20 GB, and I want to slim it down to around 9 or 10.

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dp

Member

From: Zürich, Switzerland

Registered: 2003-05-27

Posts: 3,378

Website

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

what format is your harddisk now? if ntfs, then the best way is to find somewhere cheap the PartitionMagic >5.0 (if winXP-ntfs, then you need version >7.0)

alternative is to use http://qtparted.sourceforge.net/
but as it once made something not very nice with a harddisk for me, i don't like it (not rationally, but more emotionally - it's more or less the same secureness as partitionmagic)

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The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.

orelien

Forum Fellow

From: France

Registered: 2002-12-05

Posts: 220

Website

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

Just to share my experience: I've just resized a NTFS partition this week for my brand new laptop. The tool to shrink NTFS partition is ntfsresize (from the ntfsprogs package). Simply follow the steps from the ntfsresize FAQ: http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html.

To make a comfortable use of ntfsresize, I strongly recommend to boot with the SystemRescueCD (http://www.sysresccd.org/): this distro is simply excellent.

Zephirias

Member

From: Pennsylvania, USA

Registered: 2004-04-26

Posts: 179

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

Sorry, I should've mentioned that I'm installing Arch as the second OS...so I can't really use the Linux tools.

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"Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention."

dp

Member

From: Zürich, Switzerland

Registered: 2003-05-27

Posts: 3,378

Website

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

Sorry, I should've mentioned that I'm installing Arch as the second OS...so I can't really use the Linux tools.

you can:
SystemRescueCD is a lifeLinux and else you can modify knoppix for your purposes

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The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.

soffcore

Member

Registered: 2004-04-27

Posts: 42

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

You could always try a really scary way (I got arch to do this once when I was bored)..

I had XP and wanted to keep 10Gb for it and the rest for linux.. Arch dones't have a nice partition editor per se.. so I downloaded the first CD of fedora core2 which has a partition editor durring the install that will allow you to resize your partition with a click and a drag. 

Once the partition table is writen (and u make note of the drive assignments) reboot with the arch install cd and bingo u have a niclely partitioned HD waiting for a second OS and a boot loader

Zephirias

Member

From: Pennsylvania, USA

Registered: 2004-04-26

Posts: 179

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

You could always try a really scary way (I got arch to do this once when I was bored)..

I had XP and wanted to keep 10Gb for it and the rest for linux.. Arch dones't have a nice partition editor per se.. so I downloaded the first CD of fedora core2 which has a partition editor durring the install that will allow you to resize your partition with a click and a drag. 

Once the partition table is writen (and u make note of the drive assignments) reboot with the arch install cd and bingo u have a niclely partitioned HD waiting for a second OS and a boot loader

So it won't remove all of the info when you resize it with Fedora's? I tried this yesterday with an old Mandrake 9.0 installer CD that I had, and it said that it would clear the newly resized partition. I do have an FC1 CD lying around, I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip, though I might've tried that sooner or later.

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"Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention."

soffcore

Member

Registered: 2004-04-27

Posts: 42

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

Remember to make sure you defrag in windows before you do any resizing.. it will make sure that all ur windowz data is clumped together and yes the new partition will have to formatted..

The Mandrake partition thingy-a-magiggy in v9 wasn't the best.. I used em all I tell ya lol

Zephirias

Member

From: Pennsylvania, USA

Registered: 2004-04-26

Posts: 179

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

Yeah, I defrag pretty often, so I'll try this out. Thanks for the advice again.

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"Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention."

monolin

Member

Registered: 2004-03-06

Posts: 31

Re: Question about re-sizing partitions for dual-boot

want resize a partition?
A breeze. There are two virtuoso applications out there:

acronis pertition expert (I recommend this one)
partiton magic

both run under windows but needs registration fee.

never ever use QtParted unless you want to ruin your data.

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