A different command (text based), usable at the command prompt, is “parted”. Unfortunately, upon typing “help” to see the possible commands, and then “check 1″ to verify that partition 1 was the partition I wanted to resize, it appears that support for opening ntfs file systems is not implemented yet.

Perhaps I can download knoppix 5? or BootitNG? shame to waste another CD…

~Gjemmott
Sorry if any of my terminology is incorrect; I’m a bit new to the whole Linux thing.

1) It is no more ’safe’ than using the partition editor under a Linux Live CD
2) What if you have a mains power failure during the Norton resize?

You should always make proper backups before any such resize procedure. I would
recommend cloning the drive (Clonezilla is an easy way to do this) onto a spare drive
before running the resize.

Never in my life have I seen so many people ‘running servers’ who are so absolutely unqualified to do so. If you don’t know how to look at a partition table or device entry and relate that to a Windows drive letter, you shouldn’t be doing this. If you have to ask where to find any of the utilities mentioned in this post, you shouldn’t be doing it. (Hint: Google).

If you don’t realize that the Windows defrag does not relocate files to the beginning of the drive then you should not be trying to resize the partition with free tools. If you do not realize why certain parts of the drive are not relocatable under normal operating conditions, again, you should not be doing this (Google: Master File Table)

I realize my post may sound condescending and arrogant, and its meant to, but REALLY, if there is any part of the steps defined that you do not understand because its new to you or over your head than you REALLY SHOULD NOT BE DOING THIS. Let someone else do it that understands how. Or, at least let someone else do it who is capable of spending the 6 seconds required to google for the answer to every question asked. Well, except for the silly mouse question which is in no way related to this post, even if you think it happened because you resized your partition.

Trust me, for your own protection, if you can’t follow the instructions and feel confident that you know what you are doing than you shouldn’t be doing it unless you really don’t care about your data on any drive attached to the machine in which you are resizing partions.

I had such a problem: I resized my Windows NT RAID-5 partitions with Gparted and after that I had problems with drive letters which are changing by theirselves.

In detailes:

I had RAID-1 with 2 36GB SCSI disk with Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a installed on it. I ought to expand to bigger one logical drive. I had such a partitions: C drive 2GB, P Drive 15GB and S drive with 15GB. I added 4 36U320 hot-plug HP disks to my HP Compaq Proliant ML350 G3 Server with Smart Array 641.

Before you touch any array – make sure you have up-to-date:
1) OS – make all Windows updates, including all last Service packs !!!
2) update all firmwares. In my sittuation I used HP System Maintance CD in version 8.50 which updated my server BIOS, HDDs firmwares, arrays firmware (I recommend to upgrade SA 641 step by step 1.14 into version slightly newer, then next one, than next one, than 2.64 and at the end – 2.86; if not – you can meat RAID drive incostintency !!!), tape firmware, NIC firmware and so on.
3) Server / hardware Vendor service Packs (HP PSP 6.1a for egzample)
Now your server is really ready to your “hard-works”, not before.

Before you begin logical works with your server data – make sure you have full reliable backup !!! I mean: doubled tapes and doubled soft. I used in this case: OS bounbdled software “ntbackup” and payed commercial 3rd party software in full (but 30-days trial) version – Yosemite (currently BarracudaWare after aquisition of Yo) Tapeware 6.3 SP3E, propably one of last compatible with NT version of Tapeware. All backups – with none network attached, with no NT services running !!! After that I could safely start my preparations to administrative works.

I added my identical 4 36GB HP hot=plug server disks into array. Using HP Array Configuration Utility (with last compatible with Windows NT 4.0 Server version – 6.30.11) rescaned everything in array. Then I made in first step on-the-fly migration from 2 disks RAID-1 36GB effective space into RAID-5 based on 5 disk with 36GB effective space. Operation finished OK after 8 hours or something like that. Then logical on-the-fly array expanding into full 137GB effective space (RAID-5 means: quantity of drives times their size minus 1 drive for logical CRC gives us effective logical size for our data, so in that example it was 5×36GB – 36GB = about 144GB counted as 1MB=1000bits, but 1MB is in real 1024bits, so finally it is 137GB ;-> ). Next few hours and done (the bigger priority you set in ACU – the faster completation of this scheduled job you receive). At the end – I added sixth drive as hot-spare to my RAID-5 array. Make full restart to check if everything is really ok. Great, all done on-the-fly and working perfectly – thank you HP/Compaq array engeeners !!! ;-))))

After restart I see in NT Disk Manager such a sittuation: logical drive 36GB (partitioned) and about 100GB unpartitioned free space. Now I had to do such a operations: expand C drive (system) from 2GB into 3.5GB (in theory you can expand in Windows NT Server SP6 Boot partition up to 7.8GB, but I don’t recommend expanding over 3.7GB. During server restoration it causes planty of additional works and problems !!!). Expand P drive from 15GB to 31GB (support files, logs, backups and so on, stuff which don’t need to backup up every day) and S drive from 15GB into rest of free space (101GB) (the most important thing – user and aplication data).

Reconsidering many payed and unpayed solutions to NT Server 4.0 resizing I decided to use open source, free – Gparted. I tried it a few times with Windows XP workstations and it worked. But not this time… Hint: before u use any linux disk tool remember – you don’t have drive letters then !!! You see only their size and desciptors (labels). So name you disk. I named it: c – System, P – Support, S – Data.

First problem: on my Compaq Proliant ML350 G3 Server with Smart Array 641 – using Gparted Live CD v4.5.2 – there were no possibility to do resizing – Gparted could not see any drive !!! I found that page (thank you authors for it !!!) and I found above link to System Rescue CD v 1.2.4 with preinstalled Gparted. System Rescue CD propably has got better drivers because it recognized my array properly and than I could use Gparted. Frankly speaking when I read carefully that initialization steps it makes really more hardware recognition than Gparted live CD :-) Hint: if you want start System Rescue in cool fast way remember this path: ENTER, ENTER, type wizard, choose Xorg-run then enjoy Gparted in reasonable way (second icon in the left down corner is Gparted Icon).

OK, so I started Gparted via SR CD. There is Gparted in version 0.4.5, so the newest stable version at this moment. I planed all operations in one step: moved partitions P and S to make some space beetwen drives, expanded C drive to 3.5GB, attached than P drive to the end of new C, than expanded to 31GB, attached S to new P partition, and at the end – expanded S drive to rest of spare disk – it was free 101GB left. I started Gparted in the evening and go home for night. All that 8 operations (steps) were done until the morning. All operations done properly, no error, just great !

After restarting server – Windows (all Windowses, not only NT 4.0 Server) makes standard operation – disk error checking. It is because drive descriptors changed. So it starts system Checkdrive for all partitions. It scaneed everything, recalculated descriptors, made something more and at the end showed status OK, no errors. At this step system is restarting one more time. After second restart – next windows checkdrive and still ok, no errors. Systems is booting properly. But when I logged in… it showed planty of errors !!! WTF ? ;-))))

I started reading dialogs. So it shows me problems with starting some services and startup items placed on P and S drive. Opening my computer it demascated the problem – NT changed automatically all drive letters into: C-system, D-DVD+RW, E-Support,F-Data !!! OK, no problem ! I opened Windows NT Disk Manager, changed drive letters respectively to P and S letters. Made restart and… Damn… I was surprised because my system still has got the same errors caused by the same problem – drive letter E and F !!! Mhm, it is problem. I checked drives with Windows NT Checkdrive – no errors. Gparted check – no errors. Every time I change that drive letters into my values (P and S) – after restart I receive E and F. None of my idea could work… One of idea was: change DVD letter into Q letter, so maybe it will use sequential disk naming – Q and S. S was more important, it was no problem to make changes in some logs into “Q:\…” path from “p:\…” path. But this idea also failed. I really scared. I started searching Internet. When I read some support sites I was sure that my operations destroyed MBR that’s why my system was starting naming disk from the scratch. Funny, but I was not really happy of that. Changing so may paths (on server and in users) was real horror !!! So I decided to make such a operation: delete P and S partition, set them again after restart and restore data to that disks from one of my backup. Propably it could work, but hopefully – I found a few minutes before reformating, on www experts-exchange dot com – simple solution to my problem !!! Jeesas, thank you Dear God for Internet and for YOU PEOPLE you want to waste your time to describe your problems and how to solve them :-)))) That’s why actually I repay my obligation in this long post :-)

The cool short simple idea was: just delete “information” entry in registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\DISK :-))) But what for ? When you remove that entry (use regedit, before you start making changes in regedit – ALWAYS make copy of you registry at least this branch you change !!!). I made restart. When I started NT Disk Manager I read such an information: “drive desriptor is not available or is absent. Disk Manager will prepare new one for it”. OK. Then I changed my drive letters into expected letters (P and S) and cheked in regedit that new information entry was placed. Restart, loggin and… IT WORKS !!! After restart My C (system) was still C:, my DVD+RW was still D:, my “Support” was P: and My “Data”S:” !!! Made few restarts, checked security setting if they are still present – all seems to be ok. Great job !!!

I hope you will save planty of time because of my above experiences. ENJOY it :-)))

“Unable to read the contents of this filesystem! Because of this some operations may be unavailable”

The “Resize/Move” option is unavailable (greyed out on the menu).

I was not actually using Knoppix, I was using SliTaz, so maybe the GPrated version is different.

- copied the 16 GB X: drive data in a safe place
- downloaded knoppix and made a CD
- booted on knoppix
- run gparted
- deleted X:
- enlarged W: from 5 to 8GB

Started windows: no problem.
Recreated a 17 GB X: NTFS drive (in windows)
Copied back the 16GB data to X:

Everything worked like a charm, thanks a lot :)

Yves

[a few visual bugs in gparted, but was not a problem actually, as gparted is outdated in knoppix]

coLinux – Run Linux as a Windows program
http://www.colinux.org/

Run most versions of Linux
http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Linux_Distributions

And it’s various spinoffs

andLinux – Add Linux to WinXP toolbar
http://www.andlinux.org/downloads.php

coMomonga Linux 3
http://www.momonga-linux.org/20061031.html.ja

“I want Linux as our Servers are Linux and there’s no cost associated with migeating to CentOS.

Help Me.”

that’s the cost right there. reduced to the mercy of others for help. this is your linux.

I wait for your response.
Thanks.