Andrew Joakimsen wrote:
On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 4:43 PM, Jerry Feldman
wrote: Windows resize procedure is time consuming because you first need to do a defrag, then use either the Windows native resize or something like GParted. I always reboot Windows immediately after any resize operation as a sanity check. With this approach, there is no resizing, and no instalation. Just installing Virtual Box (or VMWare), importing the VDI. I've never install Virtualbox on Windows just on Linux.
No you don't. You can use a program called "Partition Magic" it will reboot the system and run whatever needed operation in one step during the boot-up process. No need to manually run different things.
Of course any files which located outside the boundaries of the new partition size will need to be moved but I think PM does it in a way that's optimized for speed (and the Windows defrag progam tends to always leave a chunk of data towards the end of the disk)
GParted and QTParted actually do a better job that Partition Magic. All
3 handle NTFS partitions. In my experience with Partion Magic, it did
not defrag the Windows partition. In any case I prefer to use Open
Source partitioners. Different defrag programs do things differently.
Norton Speed Disk used to have a number of ways you could control this.
But, no matter how you look at it, you need to perform the defrag and
resize operations whether the partitioner does it all or whether Windows
does it, so regardless of the tool, there is the wasted time normally
spent by a Linux volunteer who really does not want to work on Windows.
Certainly the volunteer does not have to sit and wait, and can attend to
another client, but the client has to wait.
By installing VirtualBox, or VMWare Player in Windows, and simply
importing the VDI, you save not only the defrag and resize steps you
save the time it takes to install Linux and you get the client up and
running sooner. The thing that I was not 100% sure of is could I copy a
VirtualBox VDI containing SuSE 11.0 to media, and then copy it to
Virtualbox on Windows.
--
Jerry Feldman