Stupid Windows Defrag

I'm trying to dual boot Windows XP Tablet & Kubunto 6.06 on my laptop/tablet PC. Now I need to split my disk up into several partitions, 1 for Windows and Linux ext3, Linux swap, and a FAT32 shared partition so I can easily share files between the two OSes.Now my problem begins with Windows. I need to move all the files in the existing Windows partition (the entire hard disk) to the FRONT of the partition so then I can go in and resize the Windows partition.When I defrag, I'm currently looking at 98% of all my files at the front of the partition & a stupid pesky 2% at the back and refuse to move.. it's seperated by almost 20 gigabytes of free space!!! Are there any freeware utilities that can move these stupid ^%#@#$ files next to all the other files so I can freaking partition my stupid drive???I've ran this useless Windows Defrag about 20 times in a row and the stupid files seem to be moving twards the END of the stupid partition!!! It also tells me some files can't be moved & it doesn't tell me which freaking ones!!! I'm about ready to just back-up everything, use my recovery disks to format & install Windows, then partition & install Linux then go back and re-install all my stuff.This is really starting to get frustrating...[N]F

Edited July 21, 2006 by nightfox (see edit history)

woah you lost me at kubunto... Well it seems to me like you already know wat you have to do. Could you explain wat Kubunto is? I also have a partition on my old dell comp. It has Windows ME and Windows Xp. Wat exactly is a partition anyway and can i get rid of it?

CyberReaper, you should probably post in a new topic if you have questions.

Heard of Kubunto several times already and decided to look it up...it's actually just another Linux version out there.

A partition is basically just an allocated amount of space. You can get rid of it, but it will most likely get rid of the data in it as well...unless you merge it - I think it will create a sub folder in that case. If you still have questions on this, create a new topic and post in it instead.

nightfox, for Windows XP, I assume it is using NTFS and not FAT32 right? If FAT32 is ok, take a look at Partition Resizer. If you are using NTFS instead for Windows XP, then try out Partition Manager and see if that program can handle resizing NTFS partitions. It listed Windows XP as one of the operating systems there, so hopefully it will be able to do that also.

Yeah, it's NTFS. Except I can't resize a partition that still has files at the end of it, can I?[N]F

Edited July 21, 2006 by nightfox (see edit history)

I'm not sure. I don't think I ever encountered a problem when there were files at the end of a partition. Or maybe my partitioning program moved them for me during the partition process. I use Partition Magic though...

Did you back everything up already? If not, I highly recommend that you do so now. I never trust the partitioning programs (free or paid) to always work perfectly. So if something goes wrong, my important data won't go down the drain with it

See if that Partition Manager program will work for you. If it doesn't, then give NTFS Resize a try. This one sounds like it should be able to handle the resizing without any problems.

I'm not sure. I don't think I ever encountered a problem when there were files at the end of a partition. Or maybe my partitioning program moved them for me during the partition process. I use Partition Magic though...
Did you back everything up already? If not, I highly recommend that you do so now. I never trust the partitioning programs (free or paid) to always work perfectly. So if something goes wrong, my important data won't go down the drain with it

See if that Partition Manager program will work for you. If it doesn't, then give NTFS Resize a try. This one sounds like it should be able to handle the resizing without any problems.

lol, ok. I'll give it a try. And I plan on backing up everything. I don't even trust Windows. It can't even keep my laptop battery charged when it's even plugged into the wall so why should I trust it with my data? I'll just go and use my other laptop to download and burn it for later because I'm still having too much fun! Without running windows, the performance of my laptop has GREATLY improved.

[N]F

actually you can resize an NTFS partition, but it's just Kubuntu doesn't have that ability yet. However, the SuSE Linux installer disc comes with a partition shrinker and all that :unsure:O, and yes, it can shrink NTFS partitions.xboxrulz

Edited July 22, 2006 by xboxrulz (see edit history)

actually you can resize an NTFS partition, but it's just Kubuntu doesn't have that ability yet. However, the SuSE Linux installer disc comes with a partition shrinker and all that
O, and yes, it can shrink NTFS partitions.
xboxrulz

lol, I know. I love SuSE as well. Except Kubuntu is the ONLY Linux distro that will actually WORK on my laptop (USB ports currently aren't working in the Live CD version... worked on my mom's comp though, but the graphics card wasn't detected properly and was at a very low res) and I think the USB problem might be a little isolated problem. Once I get my partition resized and Kubuntu installed, I'll have to see if they work.

[N]F

if it's a dynamic disk then you should be able to easily resize.

re-sizing a partiton doesnt just chop the end off, it moves the files too.just find a partiton re-sizer that supports ntfs.or better yet, next time you install windows, use fat32, linux support for using, and re-sizing fat32 is excellent.

To actually address the issue of the unmoveable files. Windows, even XP, all build off of previous versions, and all of them still have some hangovers from DOS. This is an unfortunate situation because it leads to "unmoveable files." The reason these files are unmoveable is that some system files are addressed by specific location. When windows installs, it usually places these files near the front of the harddrive, but in rare instances for reasons unkown to me, it places them in the middle or end of the partition. If you could find every file that called one of these system files, update it to point to a new memory location, and then move the unmovable files to that new memory location, then they could be moved. As far as I know, there is no program to do this, but search online and see what you can find.According to some things I just read when doing a search, these unmovable files are also made up of the swap space and the system restore files. So you can try giving windows no virtual ram and clearing all the system restore files and space and see if that gets rid of the unmovable sections.~Viz

Any hard drive with any format with any file or file type can be partitioned as you need as long as you have enough room for everything. Most partitioners usually operate outside of Windows so that they can move these difficult files. You can if you want but I don't suggest it move the Master Boot Record. Of course if you move this file without reinstalling Windows, your Windows installation will not boot. Anyhow, you can select the settings that you want for your partition then hit go. Your computer will restart and instead of Windows booting, the partition software will do its magic. Partition Magic is what I use but it isn't free and now owned by Symantec so probably no.t free trials either. If I were you, I wouldn't bother doing a dual boot system on a laptop. There are just too many problems with that kind of set up. Especially when you finally decide that you didn't really need the latest linux distribution so you uninstall it. Then you find that your MBR is corrupt since the system can't find GRUB anymore so your computer doesn't know how to load Windows. This is difficult even if you use multiple hard disk drives. If you really want to use Linux, then I suggest that you find yourself a cheap used computer and install it there. Then you can install various distributions of Linux on the same system and easily share your files without the possibility of damaging your Windows installation. Maybe I'm overly cautious these days. I have either Red Hat or Fedora Core on a seperate drive which I used to test some web server software (cPanel). The installation is useless now since cPanel rewrote most of the OS and was only active for 15 days so I'd need reinstall RH or FC if I wanted to use it again. I had some trouble in the past With dual boot systems. Anymore, I don't want to experiment with my daily driver and my wife isn't about to let me replace Windows on her laptop. I guess what I'm trying to say is be very careful. Be sure you know what you are doing be fore you start and backup your hard drive before and after you reformat. I suggest DVD-RW's for that. vujsa

there is one program that can do this moving and resizing and can even give you multiple master boot sectors in your hard drive.power quest have this amazing partition magic software and in your case that there was a mere 2% at the end. this will only eat a small amount of time in preparing the resize. There is a partition magic for windows and for linux..It will shred you some $$ obtaining it but i do believe that the trial version runs on full features as the last time i checked it up but with limited time.--on the other hand, i have partition magic worked for me for free but i wont directly recommend it since i hexed the executable and added null commands in place of the license checking.. it worked but it wont defrag the files before resizing..