Ubuntu Express: Can it setup a partition and dual-boot with Windows

[Cefiar]

On Tuesday 13 June 2006 12:10, David Whyte wrote:
> On 6/7/06, Karl Goetz <kamping_kaiser at internode.on.net> wrote:
> > David Whyte wrote:
> > > The question is, does the Ubuntu 6.06 LTS live cd include some kind of
> > > tool to create new paritions and the like so that everything is done
> > > for me?  I don't have any tools to do this for me (i.e. partition
> > > magic) so I wouldn't know where to start.
> >
> > I think both cds do [1].
> >
> > [1] there was a bug where the live cd ate peoples ntfs partitions, but
> > I'm fairly sure that got sorted out ;)
>
> I can see from a great wiki article
> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GraphicalInstall) that you are able to shrink
> an existing partition, which is great, however, after asking around, I
> got told by a linux savvy mate that if my original partition is NTFS
> it is impossible to do any kind of resizing.
>
> Excuse my stupidity, but is this really the case?  Karl even mentioned
> an old problem with NTFS partitions, but chances are that is fixed in
> the released version of Dapper.

I shrunk a partition last week with no problems at all. Admittedly, this was a 
relatively NEW install of XP that was shrunk to half it's size, so that means 
the data was almost exclusively on the correct side of the disk in the first 
place, and hadn't undergone a huge amount of use to have errors.

I will ALWAYS recommend that anyone should do a disk check (aka "Check Now..." 
button in the Tools tab of disk properties in XP) before installation. This 
should ensure the disk is in a consistent state that the resizing tools can 
work with. A defrag is probably a good choice too, but ONLY after the disk 
has been checked for errors, and even then probably good to check for errors 
after a defrag too.

BTW: Yes I know that the XP defrag tool doesn't fully defrag the disk, but the 
FS will hopefully be in a better resultant state than if it hadn't been run 
at all, especially on a well used machine.

-- 
 Stuart Young - aka Cefiar - cef at optusnet.com.au

-- 
 Stuart Young - aka Cefiar - cef at optus.net