[ubuntu] Can't resize ntfs partition

[WunderSlug]

Alright...I'm going buggy...I'm trying to install ubuntu on my in-laws Dell Inspiron 640m and I can't resize the ntfs partion. I wanna dual boot xp and ubuntu and I've gotten rid of the two useless dell partitons but i can't resize the ntfs. I did this exact same process on my dell desktop. worked like a charm. any ideas?

[Pumalite]

Get Gparted Live CD to work with unmounted drives/partitions.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...kage_id=271779
Burn the iso to disk and boot from it.

[Jozza The Wick]

It may also be that there are bad sectors on your HD. If you find that GParted Live CD doesn't let you resize the unmounted partitions without giving you a clear reason why, that may be your problem.

If that's the case, you'll have to try installing via the Alternate (text based) CD, breaking out of the install process to start a shell, shrinking the ntfs filesystem with ntfsresize (using the force resize option - back everything up first!!), then deleting and recreating the ntfs partition (which if you do properly preserves the data). Then finally you can continue on with the install process...

Let's hope it doesn't come to that, though! Let me know if you need any help -I managed it, and I'm no expert...

[vanadium]

Yet another advice: defragment de disk under Windows, then make sure Windows is properly shut down before attempting the resize with gparted.

[WunderSlug]

Ugh...Sorry, my brains fried...my wife is in labor at the moment, so I'll keep this quick...She has a hours to go, so don't think I'm a bad husband. I tried gparted, and I can't resize through that. Checked the disk for bad sectors, the drive is fine. I DEFINITELY don't know enough about linux to do a text based installer. So is there another way to resize the ntfs partition, thourgh windows or dos maybe? I'm a dos whiz, so thats preffered. Thanks folks...Will check in a few days from now after the kid is born...

Thanks again.

[WunderSlug]

Hang on, you said unmounted partition. What do you mean by unmounted? Does the ntfs partition having a boot flag have anything to do with it?

By the way, The guided option in Ubuntu and the manual option both come back with the same error, just in case that matters.

Thanks AGAIN.

[faizoro]

I had the same problem and google searching lead me to this conversation thread you have been having on the subject. I found help no-where, but a guess worked out for me after tried many many other things which failed.

I had successfully resized ntfs partitions on this very computer in the past. The only difference between those times and this one was that recently I decided to put a password on my windows account to keep my eight year old off of the computer without permission.

I changed the password to nothing (removed the value in the pw box) which got it auto-loging in again with no ntfs protections. I booted in to Ubuntu- tried resizing and (to my credit I guessed this would happen- but I wanted to do it in this order to put a fine point on what I was learning with my experiment) had no luck resizing the partition even now.

I then booted fully into windows again and booted fully and gracefully back down (the ntfs pw removal routine doesn't apparently complete until a full boot-in, so re-booting into ubuntu emediately after making the change wasn't enough to sove the problem. I had to boot in to windows one more time). Then I resized my ntfs partition w gparted and had no trouble what-soever.

Hope the same works for you. Good luck!! Let me know if it works by the way - I'm just curious (this forum may email me anyway but just in case: faizoro@gmail.com)

[psusi]

Run a chkdsk and defrag in windows.