(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I want to resize my Windows partition because it is too big and I don't use it much.

The problem is GParted won't let me resize it and says I have one or more bad sectors. I went into Windows, defragmented my drive and Windows says it's fine now, no need to do anything, but GParted still doesn't like it.

Also, I have never done extended partitions before, it seems pretty straightforward reading about it on the internet, but I'm not sure I have it correctly set up (of course I have to solve the resizing problem first).

I currently have a Windows partition, two primary Linux ext partitions, and a Linux swap partition. Should I simply resize and make an extended partition, or do I have to get rid of the swap partition and put it in the extended partition? If it's fine where it is, could I simply make a fourth primary partition instead, as I don't really need to have several partitions as in an extended partition?

mini-jaguar wrote:The problem is GParted won't let me resize it and says I have one or more bad sectors. I went into Windows, defragmented my drive and Windows says it's fine now, no need to do anything, but GParted still doesn't like it

Gparted is fussy about NTFS partitions. It doesn't want to get blamed for wrecking your Windows install.

However, defragging may not be enough. You need to run a CHKDSK operation.

Open the Properties of the C: drive and run the Error-Checking procedure.

There is also the command line utility, ntfsfix

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78555

And the command line utility ntfsresize

http://crashrecovery.org/CrashRecoveryK ... .ntfs.html

I have used the former, without ill effect, but not the latter. However it might be worth considering if there really aren't any bad blocks or other similar anomaly yet gparted wont play ball. In cases like this where altering partitions is in prospect, a few thorough backups of the ntfs partition are in order beforehand.

There may be an issue here with how Windows has your drive setup. But, there's help. In Windows, I believe it will do it for you. That way, you wont have to be concerned that it wont boot when you're done.

It will involve your booting a PE disk and resizing the Windows partition of choice.

I remember this flag problem, I just cant remember what the "get-around" was when using Linux, except to say that the message when you click on the flag was misleading.

Here to help.

Gparted live CD

For partitioning I would suggest you use the Gparted live CD that you can get from here.
You can download a free version to make your own Gparted live CD.
It is up to date and specifically made to run Gparted.
Info:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
Download:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted ... ve-stable/

See if I can help clear the confusion.
Partition basics:
On a hard drive /storage device.
Can have up to 4 primary partitions.
Or 1 to 3 primary and one extended partition.
The extended partition can be divided into any number of logical partitions.

The extended partition is a special partition that can be further divided into usable logical partitions. No restriction on number of logical partitions. The logical partitions make the space in the extended partition usable to the file system.

I currently have a Windows partition, two primary Linux ext partitions, and a Linux swap partition. Should I simply resize and make an extended partition, or do I have to get rid of the swap partition and put it in the extended partition? If it's fine where it is, could I simply make a fourth primary partition instead, as I don't really need to have several partitions as in an extended partition?

I think the swap partition may be a primary partition in you setup. You would need to delete it and make it one of the logical partitions in the extended partition.

In the Gparted documentation, it has a section of info about changing a partition, that has Windows on it.

Easeus-Partition-Master-Home-Edition - freeware for Windows machine

http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partiti ... 63346.html

.

chkdsk and ntfsfix do not give the desired results. I also tried a couple other simple Windows and Linux commands, as well as utilities.

This may be the solution though, when running "Information" in GParted on a regular Puppy, I got the enclosed message for my NTFS partition.

The problem is I am not quite sure how to proceed further. To do the "ntfsclone --rescue..." I need to copy it into something, which I guess I'll use an external hard drive. But it doesn't say anything about copying it back (to the internal hard drive). Would I do this the same way, reversing the order of the hard drives in the argument? Do I still use the "--rescue" option?

Otherwise it would not work if I don't copy it back, since I can't boot Windows from an external drive, in order to run "chkdsk". Also my menu.lst file is on my Windows partition.

Also, do I need to prepare the external drive in a certain way before I clone the partition? And the internal drive when I copy it back?

If you want a tool to back up your NTFS partition, look at gnost.

But frankly, once a hard drive gets bad sectors, you are sitting on a time bomb. And messing around with it by trying to resize may just make things worse.

Only the NTFS partition had bad sectors, the Puppy partitions are fine.

Really I don't see what could go wrong that is so bad. I may lose the Windows install, but I can still boot from USB and restore the Grub, so the other partitions are safe.

And anyways, I would resize only after fixing the bad sectors.

Still I want to try this but don't know how to proceed.

If you can boot to Windows, you can right-click on the drive in explorer and select check drive for errors. You want to select the advanced one that checks the whole drive.
It will check the sectors also and mark the bad ones so they are not used.

But.....

As rcrsn51 said the drive may continue to develop bad sectors and they may appear on any partition on the drive.
If you value your Puppy installations and personal stuff, I would do a backup of the pupsave file to external media and see about getting a new hard drive!

I know from experience with having had a drive that started developing bad sectors and continued to do so.

I have 98% of my stuff already backed up, but I'll do the rest before I try the other stuff. No save files, but all the stuff in them is backed up, including 100% of what is in the Windows partition.

I already have external hard disks and USB sticks, I'm not really worried if something happens to the internal drive.

I could just wipe the Windows partition, because the reason I wanted to resize it is to try ReactOS. I use Wine mostly anyways, but I wanted to see if I could use ReactOS for the few programs that don't work in Wine. However, it might not do the job.

But I would still like to try that ntfsclone --rescue thing, except nobody wants to give me any clues (probably because they never tried it).

mini-jaguar wrote:But I would still like to try that ntfsclone --rescue thing, except nobody wants to give me any clues (probably because they never tried it).

I suggested gnost above. It uses ntfsclone and might work for you OOTB.

If it detected the bad blocks, you would just need to modify its code a bit.