I am quite sure that the answer to this question is on the boards already somewhere but after an hour of searching I have not been able to find one that I can understand.

A few simple questions.
1) Is there a way for me to shrink a current NTFS partition on my hard drive in order to make room for a Red Hat installation that doesn't require me to purchase software such as Partition Magic?

All following questions assume there is a Yes answer to the above.

2) I find a program that I can use on my current system that will allow me to do so that includes a step by step manual. While I am familiar with command line computing, the Linux commands are completly foreign to me.

3) I have a 80 GB hard drive of which I would like to keep at least 40 GB for Windows as I am an avid RPG gamer and my children also use the computer. However I want to be able to explore Linux to it's fullest, so any suggestions as to the best way to partition the drive would be appreciated.


Thank you in advance for your help

To the best of my knowledge there are no freeware programs that will repartition your hard drive without deleting data.

Every HOWTO i've read in this area told me that I would have to order Partition Magic.

Maybe someone else knows of a program.

i saw an ntfs partition resizer on the web that had a free demo, but i can't
remember what it was called. MS will not release the specs for ntfs without
somebody paying big money and signing non-disclosure agreements. that's
why there's nothing free.
somebody recently wrote something that used MS's ntfs driver to write to
ntfs, but we're a long way from having a free tool that resizes it.

There are linux tools to do this.. I just used this util last week and it works great. This tool resized the data and fixed the NTFS data structures that report disk size "System Volume Information" but it does not affect the partition table, for that you will need to use fdisk/cfdisk. As long as you are only shrinking to fit linux on the end or your disk you should be fine.

Note if you make a mistake on the fdisk portion of this task you could be sol.

-Matt

http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html

awesome. i'll try it out soon and see if i can screw up some stuff with it.
i'll make some ntfs partitions and resize and move them around and see
if i can hose it up.

Hey Matt,
If you haven't installed Linux, how could you use a Linux tool to resize the existing partition to install Linux on?
Also, if there is some magic trick that would make that possible, the original query was "What and How", not "has anyone ever done this?" with just a yes-no response.
While I'm sure you were just trying to help, you really didn't tell this guy (or anyone else) anything.

I always though of linuxquestions as a learning site not just a place to find the exact answer to any question. There are a number of ways to get this to work.

If you want to get into the syntax of the original post.

1) Is there a way for me to shrink a current NTFS partition on my hard drive in order to make room for a Red Hat installation that doesn't require me to purchase software such as Partition Magic?

The key to above is "Is there a way" and yes there is and I provided a link to a tools howto page. Providing both a Yes and a How.

Personaly I used PXE boot to boot a laptop and copied the binary. But this person is using slakcware they could use disk2 as a rescue disk , or use knoppix, ... etc.. But thats more information then needed.

Further more any one searching for nfts resize would get a hit on this thread and would find a link to a tool which could help them. With that said it is hardly true that this was a totally uninformative post.

-Matt

Mandy's diskdrake did resize my XP NTFS5 partition successfully. Just a FYI to prove that it is possible. Your mileage may vary. I tried it as I don't care whether it gets hosed. It didn't. I was lucky. Doesn't RedHat have a partition tool?

Not one that would deal with NTFS in a non-destructable way at least that I could find.

I ended up finding a copy of Parition Magic 8.0 and that worked great.

After a few minor problems I am now up and running, thanx all for your help.

I don't get what you are complaining to Matt about. He posted a link with the current status of a few different ntfs resizers, and that page has links to how to use them.

Copy the software to floppy, CD, DVD, USB stick and boot from that media. The OS what you have on your disk is completely irrelevant.

Partition Magic used to use DOS, perhaps still or Win98. Acronis' Partition Expert uses Linux. Mandrake, SUSE, QTParted also use Linux to resize NTFS.

The URL what Matt suggested explains this but you didn't bother to check it out instead started to flame Matt without any reason.