Mark_E_Wallace Posted January 31, 2004 Report Share Posted January 31, 2004 (Already posted this on alt.os.linux.mandrake. Hoping y'all can help too) This may be a FAQ. If so, please just feel free to point me in the right direction. Am trying to install Mandrake 9.2 onto a notebook w/ a 40GB drive with XP Pro already on it. The NTFS partition occupies the full drive right now. Goal is to resize the NTFS down to 15GB (or thereabouts), leaving the rest for MD9.2. Less than 6GB of the NTFS partition is used. Before trying the MD install, I disabled paging in XP, deleted the page file, rebooted, and defragmented the drive. The defrag went fine, but it still showed some contiguous (but not unmoveable) files about 2/3 of the way "down" the drive map. Next went to do the MD install. When I get to the point where I can customize the disk usage, diskdrake will only let me resize the NTFS partition from 37 down to around 35GB. Even if I go to advanced mode and manually enter in (say) 18000 MB as the adjusted NTFS partition size, it will still only bump down to 35GB. I'm stumped. What's the deal? Do I have to go to something like Partition Magic (which I'd rather not have to buy) for something seemingly this simple? Thanks, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted January 31, 2004 Report Share Posted January 31, 2004 I did something very similar when I installed Mandrake on my own laptop. The NTFS resizer can only re-size until it encounters data. So if you have a chunk of data 2/3 of the way into the partition then it can only re-size the last 1/3. Not the best explanation, but I hope you understand what I mean. The tools do not (at least to my knowledge) have the ability to move the data in the partition around to allow you to re-size further. I have not used partition magic in a long time, but I would imagine it has the same limitions. If you want to re-size further you will need to find some way of moving the data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted January 31, 2004 Report Share Posted January 31, 2004 I think the Norton Utilities(Disk Doctor) can move the data around but I'm not sure; its defragging program is supposed to be vastly superior to the windows version. I would also try PM and see if it can resize the partition. PM's NTFS capabilities are superior to the linux programs I've seen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted February 1, 2004 Report Share Posted February 1, 2004 (edited) Hi Mark and welcome to the board! Many laptops (esp. HP and Compaq) use a proprietary partition for settings and restore functions. It may turn out that the data you are seeing is the restore and it is normally "hidden" in setups. I think a third party partitioning software is the answer unfortunately. I'd check the mfg website for info on any hidden partitions for restore. Edited February 1, 2004 by kmack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark_E_Wallace Posted February 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2004 Well, as it turns out, I ended up grabbing a copy of BootitNG (Terabyte Unlimited) and using the resizer that is built into it. "Seems" to have worked. I managed to resize down to 18GB and reboot back into XP okay. Haven't yet tried to do the MD install, but I'm guessing it'll work okay. Will report back here if I find any negative effects of BootitNG on my system. So far (knock on wood) so good. -- Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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