Partitioning and FS's (formerly Resizing NTFS)

Message

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:01 am

How can I resize my NTFS parition before I install gentoo? I don't want to use PartitionMagic really or anything that costs money. What suggestion do you have? Thanks for any help

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:24 am

Then about your only option is:
Do a backup of the current drive (ie imaging it). Then use fdisk to get rid of the partition. Repartition as you wish. Then use the drive image to recreate the info you "erased." This does the same thing as a resizing program only it's a little bit more involved and it doesn't actually do any resizing.

And I've yet to hear of any free products that resize NTFS on the fly like Partition Magic.

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:27 am

There is a program called ntfsresize that would probably do the job for you.

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/index.html

you could also get it from portage.

Code: Select all

emerge ntfsprogs

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:34 am

Hmm.. i would use linux-NTFS if gentoo was installed right now but it isnt. the other way with imaging seems like a lot of work. I heard knoppix has linux-NTFS on it. could i burn a cd of knoppix then use that to resize my partition?
my other option is to leave my new hd like it is and put a new entry in boot.ini which way is superior? basically between GRUB and Windows bootloader, i would think GRUB... am i right?

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:44 am

You could do that with knoppix (if it does have ntfsprogs on it) . You could even install gentoo from a shell within knoppix if you wanted.

You could also probably boot your gentoo livecd and once you have the networking part setup, go and download ntfsprogs.

When I used to dual boot I prefered using grub over windows boot loader. I just found it easier to use for me. But either way would work. I dont know if one is really superior over the other.

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:06 am

Well if i just have straight dhcp network can i boot from liveCD andinstall and use linux-ntfs? that would be great. Also on GRUB, I need to move my NTFS back a few sectors to make room for the /boot partition for grub, don't i?

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:22 am

Boot the livecd and get your network working properly. Create a temp partition on your new hard drive to store ntfsprogs. Then mount your hard drive. then go download ntfsprogs to the hd you just mounted and you should be in business.

Resize your drive, might need a reboot after that and install gentoo like normal.

As far as moving your ntfs drive back a few sectors for /boot. Im not sure that it is necessary. I think it's ideal but you could probably get away without doing it.

Oh and be careful. You might want to backup your important stuff before you do this. Just in case...

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:22 am

If he's gotta backup stuff, why not just backup all the data on the drive and wipe it like I mentioned?

Also, honestly I personally wouldn't trust "ntfsresize." Maybe it's been fixed recently but I think in the past it sometimes would corrupt data.

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 7:14 am

i am in knoppix right now. i think it makes sense that my partition table should be something like this

/dev/hda1 ntfs 40gb minus space of /boot (windows XP)
/dev/hda2 ext2 boot (boot)
/dev/hdb1 swap 1gb (swap)
/dev/hdb2 ext3 60gb (linux)
/dev/hdb3 fat32 19gb (shared)

forgot how big the boot should be, but i can find that easy enough. do you think that is a good scheme for partition? I'll be back to check tomorrow (hawaii time) thanks for advice!

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:16 pm

Are you just trying to resize your ntfs drive to make room for /boot? You should just put /boot on hdb. No need to put it on hda.

I think in the gentoo docs it recommends 32M for the size of /boot with ext2

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:47 pm

But will it still boot from hdb if i put my /boot partition on there? Won't it load up windows instead of gentoo than?

kill_switch · Post by **kill_switch** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:59 pm

the /boot partition only stores the data. grub installs itself in the MBR (Master boot record) on hda. from there it loads it's stages and then you can boot any os you want.

kill_switch · Post by **kill_switch** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:00 pm

the /boot partition only stores the data. grub installs itself in the MBR (Master boot record) on hda. from there it loads it's stages and then you can boot any os you want.

But I would recommend to switch hda and hdb (so that hda is hdb then).
So you won't need to modyfy your windows drive.

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:12 pm

Why would he need to modify his windows drive? If he uses grub he should be ok.

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:11 am

I assumed he was trying to install both gentoo and windows onto 1 single disk.

Since you want both to be on separate disks then you don't need to do anything to the disk that has windows other than you'd need to have grub/lilo installed to the first disk's mbr.

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:05 am

okay so i do not have to do anything. is it all right to have grub install in the MBR and is my partition table okay?

/dev/hda1 ntfs 40gb (windows XP)
/dev/hdb1 boot 32mb (boot)
/dev/hdb2 swap 1gb (swap)
/dev/hdb3 ext3 60gb (linux)
/dev/hdb4 fat32 all left over (shared) about 19gb

do you think that I should have less shared space?

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:08 am

is fat32 the best choice for my shared partition? is there some other filesystem that works better? almost ready to install...

also i read somewhere that kernel 2.6 has the ability to read and write NTFS? is this true and does it work almost perfectly?

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:43 am

You can get read-ride to an NTFS partition using the regular driver that's included in the kernel by mounting it as a loopback device. The problem is you can't write any files that are less that 1kb and if you attempt to replace a file with another of the same name they must be the same size.
Info at http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/

There's also another NTFS project that uses the Windows drivers in some way.
Info at: http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

btw I've never used either one of these though the 2nd one has quite a few good testimonials.

edit: but the safest is fat32

irgu · Post by **irgu** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:29 pm

slycordinator wrote:Also, honestly I personally wouldn't trust "ntfsresize." Maybe it's been fixed recently but I think in the past it sometimes would corrupt data.

I'm afraid you're confusing things. There are two totally different NTFS drivers. The old one is dangerous and the new, rewritten one is safe. The latter was written by a different team. They developed ntfsresize also and they say it never corrupted data, almost for two years, since it was released. Anyway, I don't think otherwise so many people and distro would use it, especially the big ones: Mandrake and SUSE.

However true, it's quite cumbersome to use from the command line and that's why I use usually QTParted (nice GUI using many filesystem tools) from the the Gentoo LiveCD based SystemRescueCD. It makes the task totally brainless for me

There's also another NTFS project that uses the Windows drivers in some way.
Info at: http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
btw I've never used either one of these though the 2nd one has quite a few good testimonials.

On the Captive NTFS user list I've seen many data loss, inconsistency problems the Captive driver caused. That's why I've never tried this wrapper driver out.

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:04 pm

okay thanks for all your help NTFS still seems risky, but what do i have to lose in windows besides all my game saves. i'll think about it. thanks again

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:10 pm

irgu wrote:
However true, it's quite cumbersome to use from the command line and that's why I use usually QTParted (nice GUI using many filesystem tools) from the the Gentoo LiveCD based SystemRescueCD. It makes the task totally brainless for me

That's a pretty sweet rescue CD. I'm impressed. Though I'd have to wait to use their "Partimage" program that's included until it has better support for NTFS. (and if you couldn't figure out "Partimage" is a Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux).

slycordinator · Post by **slycordinator** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:17 pm

Convex wrote:okay thanks for all your help NTFS still seems risky, but what do i have to lose in windows besides all my game saves. i'll think about it. thanks again

Why would you need to "lose" anything? If you include vfat support then you can mount fat32 partitions just like any other. And if you want NTFS then include support for it and mount it as a loopback device.

btw NTFS is not risky anymore The myth of NTFS support being risky is that the old driver for NTFS wasn't great to begin with and then it had the problem that it assumed that the NTFS versions would all be the same, which wasn't true when MS changed it around.

But the new NTFS driver just has some little quirks like you can't write a file smaller than 1k and if you try replacing a file with a "new" one of the same name they must be the same size. I'm guessing you could easily correct that by removing the old one and placing the new one on there, which would be the desired effect.

Convex · Post by **Convex** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 7:08 am

okay thanks for all your help sylcoordinator. i got a plan now.

stillspiraling · Post by **stillspiraling** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 11:04 pm

irgu wrote:
slycordinator wrote:Also, honestly I personally wouldn't trust "ntfsresize." Maybe it's been fixed recently but I think in the past it sometimes would corrupt data.
I'm afraid you're confusing things. There are two totally different NTFS drivers. The old one is dangerous and the new, rewritten one is safe. The latter was written by a different team. They developed ntfsresize also and they say it never corrupted data, almost for two years, since it was released. Anyway, I don't think otherwise so many people and distro would use it, especially the big ones: Mandrake and SUSE.

However true, it's quite cumbersome to use from the command line and that's why I use usually QTParted (nice GUI using many filesystem tools) from the the Gentoo LiveCD based SystemRescueCD. It makes the task totally brainless for me

There's also another NTFS project that uses the Windows drivers in some way.
Info at: http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
btw I've never used either one of these though the 2nd one has quite a few good testimonials.
On the Captive NTFS user list I've seen many data loss, inconsistency problems the Captive driver caused. That's why I've never tried this wrapper driver out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reccomending this amazing tool!!! I'm doing a gentoo install on my laptop and part of the drive is dominated by Windows XP, this tool is going to make my install run flawlessly WOOHOO!!

Cheers!

luminiscent · Post by **luminiscent** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:03 am

acronis partition expert is a nice program i used it.