Need to resize an NTFS partition with Ubuntu

[Joelacrane]

I'm setting up a computer for a friend, dual booting XP Home and Ubuntu 7.10. I was 10 minutes from being done, when I realized that I gave the XP partition 10 gigs, and Ubuntu 30. It simply has to be the other way around. I ended up trying to delete the Ubuntu partition to make the XP partition bigger. I want to save the XP partition because it takes the most time to set back up. gpartition refuses to let me expand the XP partition. It tells me that it needs to be unmounted, and it seems to remount the drive every time I apply the new changes!

I've spent a couple hours getting the XP side of things perfected, plus they have some emails in outlook that need to be saved.

Btw, XP won't boot, because when i erased the Ubuntu partition it took GRUB with it.

[Joelacrane]

I'm setting up a computer for a friend, dual booting XP Home and Ubuntu 7.10. I was 10 minutes from being done, when I realized that I gave the XP partition 10 gigs, and Ubuntu 30. It simply has to be the other way around. I ended up trying to delete the Ubuntu partition to make the XP partition bigger. I want to save the XP partition because it takes the most time to set back up. gpartition refuses to let me expand the XP partition. It tells me that it needs to be unmounted, and it seems to remount the drive every time I apply the new changes!

I've spent a couple hours getting the XP side of things perfected, plus they have some emails in outlook that need to be saved.

Btw, XP won't boot, because when i erased the Ubuntu partition it took GRUB with it.

[Cybrid]

Originally Posted by Joelacrane

I'm setting up a computer for a friend, dual booting XP Home and Ubuntu 7.10. I was 10 minutes from being done, when I realized that I gave the XP partition 10 gigs, and Ubuntu 30. It simply has to be the other way around. I ended up trying to delete the Ubuntu partition to make the XP partition bigger. I want to save the XP partition because it takes the most time to set back up. gpartition refuses to let me expand the XP partition. It tells me that it needs to be unmounted, and it seems to remount the drive every time I apply the new changes!

I've spent a couple hours getting the XP side of things perfected, plus they have some emails in outlook that need to be saved.

Btw, XP won't boot, because when i erased the Ubuntu partition it took GRUB with it.

Oy Vey! A little knowledge is truly...a dangerous thing.
First run XP disk after researching repairing boot sequence. or maybe EasyBCD ?
Once running, use User State Migration Tool to back up settings. Backup .PST from Outlook.
Try the newer version of Gparted
http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/ Live CD is always a little...behind.

Then if you gotta wipe it totally, you can still restore from back up.

Next time, back up first

[Joelacrane]

Thanks Cybrid, but I was able to solve the problem!

The solution was to use the Windows XP Home Cd, run the recovery console, and type "fixmbr". Windows now boots. Next, I booted up with the Ubuntu Live CD, and I was able to resize my partitions with Gparted, since the Live CD wasn't using any drives. I restarted the computer, and Windows scanned the disks before booting up. Everything looked fine. I went back and installed Ubuntu, paying VERY close attention to how I partitioned things. Booted back into Windows, everything was fine.

Booted back into Ubuntu... What?! Back to how it was before! What the...

I booted back into the Live CD and resized things with Gparted, and finally everything seemed to stick.



I guess I should have tried to run Gparted from the Live CD in the first place, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.