Thread: Need help adding a partion please

Originally Posted by Rith

I have a 160gb HD and have 30gb free and would like to take 15gb and use as Linux. I have read many articles about adding partitions and what now but they dont seem to explane how to have my 160gb (which is currently all Windows) and break 15gb off for linux without reformating. Can anyone help. Thanks

If the entire drive is one big partition, you've got two options:
1) Wipe out the partitions and repartition it to your liking
2) Use a tool like Partition Magic to resize the partition. If this goes wrong (which it could), you'd end up doing #1, anyway.

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

If the entire drive is one big partition, you've got two options:
1) Wipe out the partitions and repartition it to your liking
2) Use a tool like Partition Magic to resize the partition. If this goes wrong (which it could), you'd end up doing #1, anyway.

I second that. I also think its easier to go with #1, first time I used Partition Magic I ended up using #1.


Wow, I think I just said exactly what DarquePervert did...

Bite the bullet and repartition your drive (option 1), or go out and purchase a cheap drive. Best Buy was selling 80 gig WD drives for $30 after rebates ($60) and yes the rebates do eventually get sent to you.

do you really want to run two os's or do you just want to tinker a bit? try vmware.

As others have suggested, there is not a particularly easy or risk free way to do what you ask. There are various tools that can do what you want, but if you screw up, you'll hose your entire drive.

If your partition is Fat32, there is a free tool that you can use called FIPS but it is not without its drawbacks. If your partition is NTFS, your only real non-destructive option is Partition Magic, but be careful with it. It's the "safest" way to do what you want, but unless you want to pay me to do the job for you, I'm not going to warranty its capabilities

As others have also suggested, simply buying a second drive will not cost you very much. You could even pick up something that's a factory refurb from somewhere like compgeeks.com for almost nothing. This is probably your best route, but of course you may have other reasons for wanting to stick with one drive...

So, there are some things you can do without repartitioning at all -- If your windows partition is fat32, you can install linux directly onto it using usmsdos (or the modern equivalent) and share the partition. You can use vmware or virtual pc to create a virtual machine and make disk images (as files) in the partition, or you can use something like colinux to run linux on top of windows and again use disk image files. Any of these options really depend heavily on what you want to do with linux.. If you want a "full fledged" install directly on the hardware, I'd look for a distro that supports a usmsdos install.

Personally, I use all three methods to do various work The colinux and the 'bare metal' install share the same drive which is very convenient -- I can access all my linux data and applications even while booted back into windows.

download a tool called sysrescuecd. http://www.sysresccd.org/

This is a bootable linux distro with a lot of tools that will help you recover a damaged system (Windows or Linux). On this cd there is a tool called qtparted. qtparted is a partition magic clone that works great on NTFS (or any other partition). Using this tool you will be able to resize your drive and then run a linux install. Allow the bootloader to install in the MBR, all new distros will detect your windows partition and add an entry for it in the bootloader.

enjoy,

(EDITED: it is qtparted, not gtk-parted, oops )

Use partition magic I've used it lots of time...never screwed my data... have a / partition with 10GB and a /home with 5GB and store the data in /home... format them inside the linux distribution. ext3 or reiserfs!! If you don't trust partition magic...u use knoppix CD(linux bootable distro) and use qtparted utility and resize the partitions there! If you have more questions shoot them!
Linux guys..I want to go back to linux in my car..We need a nice nice frontend..I wanted to learn qt but I didn't had the time...headunit was a nice project but it seams stoped

Originally Posted by gork

As others have suggested, there is not a particularly easy or risk free way to do what you ask. There are various tools that can do what you want, but if you screw up, you'll hose your entire drive.

Use parted. It's free (speech + beer). I have used it a bunch, it has never gone wrong (although don't hold me responsible if it does). As with any powerful tool, be careful. It will do exactly what you tell it to do.

As for tinkering with a new OS and using VMware, I like this option. But I'm biased ;-) Workstation 5 has all kinds of fun new features.

Originally Posted by kbyrd

Use parted. It's free (speech + beer). I have used it a bunch, it has never gone wrong (although don't hold me responsible if it does). As with any powerful tool, be careful. It will do exactly what you tell it to do.

As for tinkering with a new OS and using VMware, I like this option. But I'm biased ;-) Workstation 5 has all kinds of fun new features.

even better use qtparted..I suppose you don't have linux yet..so..run linux from a cd distro(knoppix) and use qtparted...is pretty easy it's gui