dual boot windows & linux +partioned drive how much?

[mint man]

Hi i am new to the site today and have recently been learning as much as i can about LINUX MINT 14 CINANAMON i am very impressed tried the trial on LIVE DISC i am interested in installing on my PC now which currently has windows home xp sp3 installed,i have the hard drive partioned into 2 with the main (C) DRIVE(130 gb free) & (F) DRIVE (9.94 gb free),what i want to do now is increase the F DRIVE to say 20 gb and install LINUX MINT 14 CINANAMON,i have downloaded ISO and burned to DVD.

I partitioned the C drive some time ago with mini tool partition wizard but now when i try to increse the size of the F DRIVE PARTITION it just does not want to do it?,anyone had any experince with this problem,when i first partitioned the C DRIVE i had no problems i wish i had made it bigger up to 20gb! as i want to be able to have enough storage for LINUX to run and be able to install some programs ect,the installed DVD LINUX MINT 14 uses 7 gb hard disk space i have tried it,so i would only have just less than 3 gb to play with is this enough?.

I am told that LINUX is safer than windows for internet banking is that a true comment/

Regards

Mint man

[passerby]

What are you using to resize the F partition? Also, have you already shrunk C to make space for F to expand?
10GB isn't really enough. It is if you make a separate /home partition, but if you're putting the full mint install on one partition, you'll definitely want more.
You might want to try booting the live DVD and using gparted to do the resizing, assuming you were doing so via Windows before.

In regards to internet banking, I suppose you could argue that it's safer in some ways, but ultimately it's more to do with your browser and network.

[tbplayer]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you probably need to shrink the Windows partition before you increase the size of the F drive.

Follow passerby's advice using gparted to shink the C drive and then increase the F drive.

But backup your Windows data first!

[Arny006]

Sorry to put myself in the discussion & for the delay.

Can anybody tell me why shrinking C:\ with gparted?
Windows is not able to be chrooted hence no update of BCD-Bootloader.
As far I know the user must have much luck in order to be succefull with gparted shrinking.
Gparted shrinking of windows works only if in Windows: all updates are installed, drive cleaned with ccleaner and win own tool, defragmented win partition & creating of restore point. Only after alls these taks done have good chance to restart win again after shrinking.

Note 1: some unmovable win-files are in the middle of the win-partition, that's reason why win-disk-manager don't allow to shrink more than 50%

Why not use windows-disk-management for that? As far I know is much safer to to it in this way because selfmade by windows. Anyway I recommend to clean, defragment & create restore point even by shrinking with win-disk-management

Once shrinked C:\ with windows own tool, expand Linux partition with gparted and before start linux again chroot and update-grub.

I consider the simple sentence "Shrink win-partition with gparted" irresponsible. Sorry for hard criticism, but always have to read "cannot start win any more after shrinking & win-reparing tools don't work"

Please correct me if I'm wrong

[Pierre]

Shrink win-partition with gparted

that was true when dealing with win_xp, but later versions of Win & Gparted, don't agree.
so now, the trick is to use the built in_win 'disk management' tool to re-size the C; or D: drive.
& then use the 'nix installer to work on the <now> vacant partition. & install there-on.

[Lingula]

As stated above, XP doesn't have a native tool to shrink a partition. There are guides for preparation required before shrinking with gparted - google is your friend. There's even a YouTube video on how to resize during installation of Mint. Bottom line is that a fully defragmented XP boot partition has unmovable files that limit the ability to shrink the partition without fear of irreversibly corrupting the XP installation (i.e. can't repair, must reinstall). Always best to back up data and ensure that you have media and patience to reinstall XP in case of disaster. Having backups and willingness to reinstall are helpful any time you mess with partitions. Unexpected things can happen - user error, power outage, etc...

If you're satisfied with the above, then:
1) shrink XP volume with gparted
2) reboot into XP and follow the prompts to check/repair the disk (can't remember the onscreen prompts exactly)
3) reboot to resize Mint partition

It is not difficult if you're prepared.

Approach #2 is obviously to back up all user data, ensure you have backups of all installation codes/keys for all the other software you use in XP, resize the partition, and reinstall XP from scratch. Some XP users do this occasionally to get rid of software bloat or to optimize performance in other ways (e.g. switch to AHCI). If you have the time then it's probably a better approach.

Last approach is to get rid of XP completely in favor of Linux with wine, or install XP in virtual machine.

[Arny006]

Shrink win-partition with gparted

that was true when dealing with win_xp, but later versions of Win & Gparted, don't agree.
so now, the trick is to use the built in_win 'disk management' tool to re-size the C; or D: drive.
& then use the 'nix installer to work on the <now> vacant partition. & install there-on.

Not true at all, never shrink partitions with foreign tools besides you are an expert, know what are you doing and can help yourself in case of disaster.
If XP has not own tool you can use Clonezilla or Gparted, but best way is to use another free XP-tool to do it (Google is your friend).
Anyway afterwards you have to boot XP with own installation-CD or XP-Win-RE go in the CLI (Command Line Interface) also called cmd.exe and execute following commands before boot XP again:

Code: Select all

fixmbr
fixboot
bootcfg /REBUILD

after each line/command press "Enter". Close CLI with "exit"-command & Reboot in to XP
You need to do it because you have modified the partition table inside the first 512 Byte of your hard disk and want communicate the changes to XP-boot-process.

By Vista W7 & W8 use own shrinking tool and restart them afterwards in order to overtake the changes automatically. By W8 deactivate the "Fast Start Option"
With this option enabled Win 8 don't really shutdown, but go in a "deep-sleep-modus" storing date in RAM in order to start faster. If in between you have started Linux, this overwrite the RAM-data, and you than try start Win 8 again, that fails.

Additional general recommendations:
1) Never shrink the Win Partition more than 50% and use (Win) own or other free tools to shrink.
2) Make the Linux partitions with Gparted.
3) For all newer Wins (W7 & W8) maintain the Win & Linux separate. Install Easy-BCD in Win that recognize Linux, that set a link to Win-Bootloader loading Linux. Reason for that: some users complain that after Win Update or Service-Pack installation cannot start Win anymore.
4) Don't touch Win "Boot", "EFI/UEFI" & "MSR" Partitions
5) Deactivate Win 8 "Fast Start Option" by dual or multiboot

[Lingula]

@Arny006:
You provide similar dire warnings to the ones provided above. Note, however, that you do not need to (and sometimes should not) boot the XP recovery console after adjusting the partition. The key is to shrink the XP partition as a single action in Gparted, do nothing else, then reboot into XP. XP will automatically detect that the partition has been modified and will repair the system. Reboot into XP 1-2 more times, as it may have additional repairs to do. Then go back to Gparted to grow the Mint partition or make any other changes. The recovery console is only required if the first reboot into Windows doesn't work. It's particularly important for people with proprietary MBR modifications for hidden recovery partitions, such as Dell or other mainstream PC manufacturers. You will lose the ability to boot to the recovery partition if you use fixmbr (or "fdisk /mbr" in DOS - does the same thing).

Anyone contemplating shrinking an XP partition should read the whole thread.

[Arny006]

@ Lingula,
you could be right since I not using XP for long time but a proverb say:
"Caution is the mother of porcelain-box".
Can understand peoples modify their Win investing many time, have difficulties to remake the adjustments (or remember how they have done) and just would not mess it up.
I will not add further comment on that.

[Lingula]

I agree with everything you said. My point was that the repair process itself can cause additional harm. As I said above, one must be prepared to reinstall their entire system from scratch any time partitions are adjusted. The solutions above work most of the time, but unexpected things can happen.