Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:12 PM, James Knott wrote:

...

I'm planning on installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on a friends computer, which is currently running (yuck) Vista. Will the install allow me to resize the existing NTFS partition?

tnx jk

I seriously doubt it will resize NTFS from Vista or Win 7.

It should for the XP variety. (and yes there is a difference.)

I knew about XP, but that's not the issue here

fyi: Vista/Win7 have a built in resize tool, so just boot into them and right clisk on the drive to resize IIRC.)

Greg

Is it possible to do this from the running Vista on the computer. IIRC there is a resize tool in XP, but it won't work on C: when booted from that drive. I used it recently on a drive plugged into a USB case. My friend's computer is a notebook, so I'd rather not go pulling it apart. Way back when I first installed Linux on my ThinkPad, I used Partition Magic to shrink the NTFS partition, but it won't work on the larger drives that are common today. So, I need some method, using a bootable CD or DVD, that can resize that partition. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Le mardi 20 juillet 2010 18:22:33, Greg Freemyer a écrit :

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:12 PM, James Knott wrote:

...

I'm planning on installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on a friends computer, which is currently running (yuck) Vista. Will the install allow me to resize the existing NTFS partition?

tnx jk

I seriously doubt it will resize NTFS from Vista or Win 7.

It should for the XP variety. (and yes there is a difference.)

fyi: Vista/Win7 have a built in resize tool, so just boot into them and right clisk on the drive to resize IIRC.)

Greg

Hi, I dunno about Win 7 but it should work for Vista. If I recall correctly, years ago I installed Opensuse 11.0 on a laptop preinstalled with Vista (no service pack), and the installer correctly resized the NTFS partition to allow the creation of the partition needed for Opensuse. Dual boot works nice since then (now Opensuse 11.2 and soon 11.3). Just be sure to thoroughly defragment the windows file system first. If I am wrong, I must have rezise the partion under windows and created a second FAT32 partition that has finally been used by Opensuse installer. Cheers Matthias -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Matthias Titeux wrote:

Le mardi 20 juillet 2010 18:22:33, Greg Freemyer a écrit :

...

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:12 PM, James Knott wrote:

...

I'm planning on installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on a friends computer, which is currently running (yuck) Vista.  Will the install allow me to resize the existing NTFS partition?

tnx jk

I seriously doubt it will resize NTFS from Vista or Win 7.

It should for the XP variety.  (and yes there is a difference.)

fyi: Vista/Win7 have a built in resize tool, so just boot into them and right clisk on the drive to resize IIRC.)

Greg

Hi, I dunno about Win 7 but it should work for Vista. If I recall correctly, years ago I installed Opensuse 11.0 on a laptop preinstalled with Vista (no service pack), and the installer correctly resized the NTFS partition to allow the creation of the partition needed for Opensuse.

I am 99.99% confident that openSUSE 11.0 could not resize a Vista NTFS partition. (At least a couple of times I've had to do the resize from within Vista, and I never worked with Vista at all before June, 08. 11.0 was out by then and I would have been installing the latest openSUSE versions. The last time I did it was last fall and I think I was using 11.2, but it might have been 11.1 Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

What has always puzzled me is fragmentation. Surely before you resize the NTFS partition, any bits at the end must be moved to that part that will stay. This means mounting and writing to the NTFS volume directly. I would be ever so surprised if openSUSE did this during install. Perhaps on a brand new Vista, where things are not yet all through the partition, you can get away with it. By luck. Otherwise, I remain in the camp of non-believers.

An NTFS partition should always be de-fragged prior to re-sizing. But even W7's partitioner (which is diskpart under the hood) will not do that for the user, it needs to be done beforehand (Windows has a built-in sizing delimiter which essentially compensates for this, i.e., it does not permit down-sizing beyond a particular pct). If the partition is de-fragged first, then the Linux partitioning tool usually does fine. But not always, and actually this has become more problematic in the last couple years. Where I have seen recurring issues - and hence why I always stick whenever possible to the old rule-of-thumb of modifying partitions with the OS that created them - is with the partition table. Windows sometimes uses the table (and the partition boot sector) for proprietary functions; this varies by Windows version and even by which features are enabled (e.g., BitLocker writes to the disk signature). There is little documentation covering this, and what there is is only at MSDN. There are even obscure compatibility issues between Vista/W7 and XP/earlier. Secondarily, some manufacturers (particularly with laptops) do strange and undocumented things with the partitioning, including writes to the table. I've seen this with various recovery image schemes. I've also seen bios hooks where recovery and other "value-added features" have been implemented; these can get broken. The safest method is MS's diskpart from the Recovery Console booted from CD/DVD. Linux can usually do the job, but there can be unseen risks - more so since Vista. IME wise to take all precautions; fixing a broken table is not fun at all. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

dwgallien wrote:

...

I'm planning on installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on a friends computer, which is currently running (yuck) Vista. Will the install allow me to resize the existing NTFS partition?

The W7 disk manager can re-size on the fly (within certain limitations), IIRC the same is true with Vista. Alternatively, it can be re-sized by the diskpart utility in the Recovery Console, which can be run booting from either installable Vista media (in contrast to a factory pre-installed image) or from the Vista recovery disk (which can be downloaded from the Neosmart site). This is the safest method.

If not an option, my next choice would be running GParted off the most recent Knoppix DVD or an equivalent.

I haven't installed 11.3 yet, but IIRC in 11.2 re-sizing NTFS was supported. But IMO it is safer to use the above.

Goes without saying that having a tested full backup is a prerequisite.

Dennis

This is a HP notebook, so I doubt there's an installable disc. Certainly not after my friend has owned it for a while (she has a very bad habit of losing important stuff such as that). I'll look into that Neosmart site and of course it will be backed up. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org