Can't resize Partition in GParted (yellow warning besides unmounted partition)

[oldfred]

If you have a NTFS partition you need to have windows tools to repair it. It would be better to stop using NTFS if you do not have windows anymore to repair it.Testdisk also recovers partitions including NTFS and often can repair them even when chkdsk does not work.

Vista/7 CHKDSK
chkdsk C: /f /r
/f : Fixes errors on the disk.
/r : Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

If your PC did not come with a complete Vista or Win7 installation CD, you can download a Recovery Disc at the following links:
Windows Vista/7 Recovery Disc - for repairs only
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/
http://neosmart.net/blog/2009/window...-repair-discs/
Vista will not repair XP (they create the boot sectors differently) but can run check disk.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

[efflandt]

I have never had any problems resizing WinXP ntfs partitions with gparted. However, you should disable virtual memory first in WinXP first and reboot for that to take effect if you want the best chance at shrinking a partition to minimize immovable files. The first time I resized my 200 GB partition in 2004 I had not done that and could only free up about 24 GB. But more recently when I first installed Ubuntu 9.04 (a week before 9.10 was released) by disabling WinXP virtual memory I could have shrunk the XP ntfs partition to the size of actual use, but I just freed up 66 GB for a couple of Linux versions and swap. After resizing and rebooting Windows (which will check the disk) you can re-enable virtual RAM. I have also used gparted since then to resize WinXP ntfs partitions on several laptops without any issues.

But for Vista or Win7 it is recommended that you use Windows own admin tools to shrink partitions. Then you can use gparted to create you Linux partitions. I did that on a Win7 laptop I had temporarily while setting it up for someone (I put grub2 on the primary Linux partition). Although, after removing Ubuntu 9.10 and setting the Win7 partition as boot, I had to used the Win7 disk a couple of times to restore boot because it could not find bootldr. After restoring Win7 boot I resized the partition from Win7 to fill the disk.

[wilee-nilee]

I have never had any problems resizing WinXP ntfs partitions with gparted. However, you should disable virtual memory first in WinXP first and reboot for that to take effect if you want the best chance at shrinking a partition to minimize immovable files. The first time I resized my 200 GB partition in 2004 I had not done that and could only free up about 24 GB. But more recently when I first installed Ubuntu 9.04 (a week before 9.10 was released) by disabling WinXP virtual memory I could have shrunk the XP ntfs partition to the size of actual use, but I just freed up 66 GB for a couple of Linux versions and swap. After resizing and rebooting Windows (which will check the disk) you can re-enable virtual RAM. I have also used gparted since then to resize WinXP ntfs partitions on several laptops without any issues.

But for Vista or Win7 it is recommended that you use Windows own admin tools to shrink partitions. Then you can use gparted to create you Linux partitions. I did that on a Win7 laptop I had temporarily while setting it up for someone (I put grub2 on the primary Linux partition). Although, after removing Ubuntu 9.10 and setting the Win7 partition as boot, I had to used the Win7 disk a couple of times to restore boot because it could not find bootldr. After restoring Win7 boot I resized the partition from Win7 to fill the disk.

Thanks for sharing but your preaching to the choir.

[The Thunder Chimp]

Wow, thanks a lot guys, but my simple solution was to use the partitioning tools that come with Windows 7.

I was wondering too, when I use the shutdown button, Ubuntu logs off, then it almost shuts down, the screen turns blank (like if it was down), but the hard-drive still spins forever, and the green light is still there. Running

sudo shutdown -h now

works perfectly fine. Is there a way to configure the shutdown button so it can run the working command? Thanks again for your help!