HowTo use DiskDrake for Partitioning

[aysiu]

You may partition with Partition Magic.
You may partition with GParted or QTParted.

Here's another alternative, and I recommend it for two reasons: 1. It's cost-free (unlike Partition Magic) and 2. I've never known it to fail.

For some strange reason, sometimes GParted and QTParted leave certain options greyed out, even if the partition isn't mounted.

DiskDrake has always worked flawlessly for me. If you want to use it, here's what you do:

1. Go to the PCLinuxOS download page and download PCLinuxOS

2. Burn the ISO as a disk image

3. Reboot your computer from the CD

4. Sign in as guest (password guest)

5. Click on Install PCLinuxOS

6. Type in the root password (root)

7. Select Disk Partitioner (for advanced users)

8. DiskDrake will pop up. Use it. Then select Done.

9. Instead of installing PCLinuxOS, select cancel.

10. Reboot and install Ubuntu.

[-Rick-]

Thanks for this tip This DiskDrake seems indeed like a very nice partition manager, atleast as good as PM. I didn't do step 10 though...I just installed it instead, very nice distro

[Maniak]

Hang on a minute......isn't this an Ubuntu forum???

[aysiu]

Hang on a minute......isn't this an Ubuntu forum???

Yes. And when people ask how they can resize partitions when GParted or QTParted has greyed out options that should not be greyed out, a third-party solution is sometimes a good one... in this case, DiskDrake.

[barbarian]

Hello,
looks very nice..
One question: can I safely resize(reduce) swap space?

[shof2k]

Nice tip...will diskdrake allow you to resize partitions after they've been created. I have an annoying xp partition that I want to remove

[aysiu]

Hello,
looks very nice..
One question: can I safely resize(reduce) swap space?

As far as I know, yes.

Nice tip...will diskdrake allow you to resize partitions after they've been created. I have an annoying xp partition that I want to remove

You can resize existing partitions, and you can delete unwanted partitions, yes.

[az]

The Dapper live cd is kisk-***. The espresso installer has a similar partitioner and you can also run the standalone gparted with all the neccessary (ntfs) tools included. If it is buggy for you at the moment, I'm sure it will be fixed before release. A lot of talented people are working on it.

It is a smaller download, by about 50 megs, too...

...and it's ubuntu.

[aysiu]

Azz, the whole point of this tutorial is to propose an alternative just in case GParted doesn't work out for some people. I've seen numerous times people posting "greyed out" options that should not be greyed out in GParted and QTParted. I've experienced these problems myself, too.

I'm just proposing an alternative. If GParted and QTParted work out for people, I'm not going to stop them from using those tools.

[az]

Yes, but with Espresso being the installer that is planned on being shipped out by shipit, the issues that you describe with gparted will be addressed, if they haven't already been addresssed...

The partitionner on the breezy installer can do anything. It just has a curses interface. The gparted package that ships with the breezy live cd does not have all the suggested packages installed, nor does it unmount your swap. It is not fully-functional out-of-the-box because it is not the prime-time partitioning tool that you need to install with. Espresso is.