Partition Magic Trouble When Shrinking An Ext2 Partition

[Feelay 0]

Hey!

I am using a software called "Partition magic"

When I try to resize one of my partitions on my harddisk, I get the following errors:

error #1:Error #1232free blocks count wrong.

error #2:Error #1201
Ext2 superblock contains illegal information..

I am trying to make it smaller, so that I can make a FAT32 partition so I can see my important files from both Linux and Windows. Please Help. Thanks //Feelay

PS. Sorry if I post in the wrong Forum.. But I am doing this on windows, and I didn't find any other forum where I could post this.

[yordan 10]

No problem, I accept this post as being in the correct forum.Could you please have a look at which version of Partition Magic you are using, and see if a newer version is available today ?

[Feelay 0]

OMG :'(I formatted the partition were Linux was installed. ThenI could'nt start windows, because a grubb or whatever it is called. I tryed to repair and write fixmr ... something. but then it said that If I do that, I could destoey my harddisk. And I can't Format my C: partition :'( Please help :'(

[yordan 10]

OK, don't panic. Your windows install is still there, just have to give access again.
you need to boot off a ms-dos floppy disk, and at A: prompt you type "fdisk /mbr"
that's all, this will remove grub from the mbr (the master boot record).
the Windows floppy disk you can create on a Windows XP : you choose to format the floppy and check "add system files".
If you cannot really create your own ms-dos boot disk, have one from http://bootdisk.com/ ,
namely the Windows Millenium one, for instance from here http://vcic.com/vault/bootme.exe or http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
Please keep us informed.

[Feelay 0]

hmm.. Isn't this the same as when i type fixmbr in the Windows Repair when I insert the Windows CD?Because when I did that with the CD it warned me that my harddisk could become useless =(And if I install linux again. Do you guys think that I can from there, split my bigger partition, and make a small one for linux, and a bigger FAT32? if yes, can you please tell me how? because if you knew, I think that would solve all my problems =)I really don't want to format C because I have almost my whole life saved in it (pics, notes, etc.). But if i really have do, I can do that, if there isn't any other choice.

Edited March 27, 2008 by Feelay (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

Yes, you can. Whan you install Windows, instead of accepting "use the whole disk for Linux", you choose "advanced", and you create your own filesystems : you create the "/" filesystem, the swap partition, and you add a FAT32 filesystem, and you leave a lot of space unpartitionned, you will partition when booted in Windows.

[Feelay 0]

Thanks alot yordan ^-^ But I couldn't install linux, because I had the install file, show up on the boot up for windows. and I coudln't reach that. But now, I have erased all my partitions. I have created 20 GB for windows. 10 GB for linux (and I will change it to a linux file system later) and I created a 40 GB for FAT32, (at the moment it is NTFS) that I will change to FAT32 when installing Linux that should solve the problems. Now I have completed the reinstall of Windows. I just have to install AVG, Anti-spyware, and peer-guardian, and service pack, then I will install Linux. Do you think that I will be able to chage my 10 GB to linux file system from the linux install?I am sure it will work. But will my FAT32 partition be visible form both linux and windows (why can't fat32 be bigger than 10 GB =S?)Thanks //Feelay

Edited March 27, 2008 by Feelay (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

I have created 20 GB for windows. 10 GB for linux (and I will change it to a linux file system later)

It's almost OK. But you should not create the 10GB for linux right now with Windows, you have to delete it with Windows, and let it not-partitionned, and ask the Linux install to create 8 GB for Linux "/" filesystem and 2 GB for Linux swap.

[Feelay 0]

Ok. Now I only have one partition. and thats my C. Should I create some FAT32 partitions and leave 10 GB for linux?And BTW, what do the swap do?And why can't my fat32 be bigger than 10 GB.. And would it hurt if I have more than one FAT32? becaue I am planning to have one for music, one for games and so on, because it can't be bigger than 10GB.And can Linux see NTFS file system? or can it only see FAT32.and BTW..after that my harddisk crashed, I am afraid to install linux again, before I am 100% sure how to uninstall it, and the grubb tool. can anyone please help me with that. Edit: or can I use an even better file system than FAT32, if Linux can't see the NTFS? because I heard that FAT32 isn't so goodthanks //Feelayedit:I know all this is a little off-topic. But if you havn't realized this yet, magic partition started all this but I am really sorry if you don't like that I write something that don't belong to this place. Yordan (or any other mod/admin). If you want, you can change the name of this topic, and move it to the linux section. I think that would be the best thing to do. because this has nothing to do with magic partition anymore. and then you can also if you want remove this last thing i wrote after "edit" :)//Thanks Feelay

Edited March 28, 2008 by Feelay (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

Wow ! A lot of questions all a the same time. Sorry that you had so many troubles at the same time.1) Don't worry about the topic's place in the forum. First we will solve your problem, then we will see if it's a "tools" topic or a "system" topic.2) Concerning the "FAT32" thing, it's not very important. First create a "small" FAT32 partition for "natural" communication with Linux, then install Linux so that it uses only 10 giga for "/" filesystem and 2 giga for swap, leaving the rest of the disk unpartitionned, and look how your Linux behaves. My Linux is Mandrake, it has no problem neither with FAT32 nor with NTFS, so I do what I want. But some Linux distros can read NTFS and read/write FAT32.So, after installing Linux, look how it behaves with your NTFS. If it cannot write on NTFS, you boot on Windows and you create NTFS partitions for things you will read and not write on Linux.3) Your FAT32 can be the size you want, I just wanted a "small" one for testing purposes, when you see exactly what you want you will create exactly the sizes you need.4) The swap partition is part of Linux or Unix way of working. If what you are doing needs more memory than the physical memory your computer has, Linux puts parts of the memory on disk, so your swap disk space behaves as an extension of your physical memory. Of course, you see disk performances instead of memory throuhput, so the result of a swapping system is a slow system.Hope this helped.Yordan

[Feelay 0]

ok. So I'll create a 10 GB FAT32. Install Linux, giving it 8 GB for the OS partition, and 2 GB swap. That way, I will have extra space for later. And If I can't see the C: partition from linux, I make the rest of the space FAT32, because both windows and Linux can read/write to FAT32 file systems.Have I understood this right?And BTW: Which one of these is fastest, and looks best?UbuntuFedora 8, 7, and RawhideopenSUSE 10.3, 10.2, and FactoryPCLinuxOS 2008CentOS 5.1DebianArchLinux 2007.08FreeBSD 7.0 and 6.3NetBSD 4.0Frugalware Linux StableForesight Linux 1.4.2Damn Small Linux 4.2.4VectorLinux 5.9Mandriva 2008.0 and 2007.1Slackware 12.0

Edited March 28, 2008 by Feelay (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

ok. So I'll create a 10 GB FAT32. Install Linux, giving it 8 GB for the OS partition, and 2 GB swap. That way, I will have extra space for later. And If I can't see the C: partition from linux, I make the rest of the space FAT32, because both windows and Linux can read/write to FAT32 file systems.
Have I understood this right?

Right. Exactly. That's exactly what I recommend. I don't know if my explanations were clear or if you are particularly clever, but, yes, that's exactly what you have to do.

And BTW: Which one of these is fastest, and looks best?

I definitively say Mandriva 2008.0 or 2007.1For a beginner, it's fully straightforward. You boot on the install CD, you accept each default value (language = english, use graphic mode, auto-detect of graphics, auto-detect of network, use DHCP etc...) and it will auto-mount each of your Windows partitions, and you will see which is writable or not.
Of course, if you browse the other posts around here, you will see that ridig Linux people hate Mandriva because it's too easy for use, you learn nothing. My opinion is that, as a first contact, you should start with a very easy thing like Mandriva. After one ear playing with it, switch to RedHat, which is slightly more complicated. And, at the very end, go to Ubuntu, which needs more experience but at this moment you will be a geek with command lines and with downloading drivers.

Hope this helped.
Yordan

[Feelay 0]

Yes. Thank you It helped alot ;)And BTW Your explanation were clear, but I just made a fast summary to make sure that I really understood what I had to do ;)I bet that I am not Clever at all I will install linux. I will be back when I am done. (wish my harddisk good luck ).

Edited March 28, 2008 by Feelay (see edit history)

[darkken 0]

I have stopped using Partition Magic and changed to Partition Manager because partition magic with Windows XP 64 bit was failing to work. Though Partition Manager doesn't work in Windows XP 64 bit the recovery cd it has works better than any partition magic i have used.(pqmagic 5-8)

[docduke 0]

Partition Magic and Drive Image were two very useful tools from PowerQuest. Unfortunately, they got greedy and copy-protected their versions around 2004, and also changed them in major ways so that they no longer worked with anything earlier than Win 2K. The result was that they drove away most of their market, and had to sell out to Symantec. Symantec was delighted to buy them, since DI was the main competition to Norton Ghost. Anyway, PM and DI are at this point obsolete for anything newer than Win 2K.

 

If you're willing to pay for an alternative, I suggest Boot It Next Generation and Image (for Windows, Linux and/or DOS) from TeraByte Unlimited. As Yordan has said, Linux can do most of this stuff by itself these days, but there is a learning curve. I use SuSE 10.3 for most of my Linux work, but it differs significantly from "vanilla" Linux, primarily due to extensions that I find very useful.

 

One other thing to remember -- if you're planning on creating backup files of full partitions, you may want to use NTFS rather than FAT32, because of file size limits. The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 "null" byte (232−1 bytes). That also means you cannot store the iso image of a full DVD in a FAT32 file system.