[GTALUG] Partitioning Question

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| I think the few times I have resized ntfs with gparted it has usually
| worked, although back in the vista days it did break booting but it
| seems that was fixed long ago.

Warning: my understanding is not based on specifications, just
inference.  It might be outdated.

Windows has a tool for resizing partitions.  Great!

The Windows tool will shrink a partition to something no smaller than
half the original size.  Why?  I think that

1) it will not move filesystem objects that are marked as immovable

2) the table of contents or some similar object is placed in the
   middle of the volume (to minimize head movement)

3) this table of contents is marked as immovable.

GParted (actually ntfresize) is willing to shrink NTFS filesystems to
less than half the original size.  It can move immovable object.  It
the process, it can do some damage.

Here's how I use GParted to resize NTFS partitions.  It always seems to work.

- use GParted to resize the NTFS partition.  And nothing else

- immediately boot into Windows.  Before any other GParted operations.

- Windows will "repair" the NTFS filesystem during booting, if needed.

- all is well now

- reboot Linux and use the freed space.