partition problem

[OvA]

when i go in to the thing to partition my hard drive, i get this mesage

No Implementation: Support for opening ntfs file systems is not implemented yet.



i have XP home and a 40gig hard drive

any ideas on how i can fix this?

p.s. if this is a n00bisch question pls dont tell me im a n00b i already know that

[spamhog]

Linux has an excellent support for the older FAT-type filesystems used in DOS and Win 95-98-ME, but re-implementing the secret, proprietary NTFS (used in Windows NT, 2000, XP) has proven more difficult.

Read support is there, write support is better accomplished through Windows' own driver and captive.

From the captive website: "compatibility was achieved in the Wine way by using the original Microsoft Windows ntfs.sys driver".

Wine is software that lets you run a lot of windowish stuff on Linux. Likewise, captive uses the driver that Windows provides, to access Windows' own partition.

Info at http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

Captive is included in Knoppix.
KDE main menu --> Knoppix --> Utilities --> CaptiveNTFS

[robwelch100]

Windows xp has several tools for partitioning a hd. go to the microsoft knowledge base and find out how to use the tools. I have found it is better to let windows partition and move itself around instead of linux programs doing it. Or you can use third party software (Partition Magic, Partition commander, Acronis makes a partitioner) many of the programs have a trial version and you only need to partition once. So after the trial simply unistall. Also DO NOT install LILO to the MBR of the hd if you want windows to play nicely. Instead select to install LiLO in the partition itself. Use a third party boot loader such as Bootmagic etc. Again, there are many boot loaders out there for windows systems and many have trial versions. (FYI, many of the boot loaders need a FAT 32 partition to install on. So it is a good idea to make a 50mb FAT32 partition while you are at it.

[mzilikazi]

Also DO NOT install LILO to the MBR of the hd if you want windows to play nicely.

Ahem....lilo boots windows no problem.and it's a hell of a lot easier to install than it is to change ntldr. ;) Also have you heard of ntfsresize? Beware tools like partition magic as it is notorious for hosing up partions.

[robwelch100]

I am merely speaking from my own experience. I personaly do not have a problem with lilo or grub, but as long as I need a dual boot system, which will be till I can figure how to get my realtek wlan working in a recent kernel, I will use third party software and install lilo to the partition and not mbr.

[Irgu]

Linux has an excellent support for the older FAT-type filesystems used in DOS and Win 95-98-ME, but re-implementing the secret, proprietary NTFS (used in Windows NT, 2000, XP) has proven more difficult..
Linux is able to resize NTFS safely for two years now. Use QTParted from SystemRescueCD. For partitioning it's much better then Knoppix, it has the newest software. Or the latest ntfsresize + fdisk on 2.4 kernel. 2.6 kernels still have problem with reading the disk logical geometry.
http://www.sysresccd.org/
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html

[spamhog]

Linux is able to resize NTFS safely for two years now. Use QTParted from SystemRescueCD.
I concur! I got confused betw. NTFS resizing and read-write support. Never drink and compute.

SystemRescueCD is one of my best friends lately. Burn it on rewritable media, so you can track versions. I keep it on a badly scratched CDRW with a clear first 150 MB or so - more than enough.


QUESTIONS !!! (may be important)
The FAT defragmenter in Win9x pushes all drive contents toward the beginning of the drive, and there's a good likelyhood that nothing important will sit in the upper reaches that will be split off in a partition resize job.
When I defrag a NTFS system, I see that the utility cleans up files but does not automatically clump them up at the beginning - I see a bunck of neat tight clusters of files that are spread across the drive.

HOW DO YOU TELL THE DEFRAGMENTER TO FREE THE UPPER REGIONS OF THE DRIVE?

OR, DOES THE RESIZER PROGRAM TAKE CARE OF THAT, BY 1) OPENING THE FILESYSTEM, 2) MOVING THE FILES WITHIN THE FS, AND 3) REWRITING THE NTFS JOURNAL?

If neither is done, the Windows system will likely die a silent death while in surgery!

[eco2geek]

Ahem....lilo boots windows no problem.and it's a hell of a lot easier to install than it is to change ntldr.

Take a look at Topologilinux's (http://www.topologilinux.com) utility, "grubinstall" -- it's a version of GRUB for Windows that works just fine with Knoppix/Kanotix/any Linux in a dual-boot situation. And once you figure out how it works (pretty much like regular GRUB, except "stage1", "stage2", and "menu.lst" are on your NTFS partition, not on your Linux partition), it's dead easy to install.

(They used to have a sample batch file to install it, and a sample "menu.lst"; unfortunately the current zip archive doesn't include those.)

Since I've had some awful experiences with GRUB and LILO on an older computer, I'm pretty wary of them -- anyone installing a bootloader to dual-boot should make a backup of their data first! Sometimes bootloaders don't automagically work.

[Irgu]

OR, DOES THE RESIZER PROGRAM TAKE CARE OF THAT, BY 1) OPENING THE FILESYSTEM, 2) MOVING THE FILES WITHIN THE FS, AND 3) REWRITING THE NTFS JOURNAL?

If neither is done, the Windows system will likely die a silent death while in surgery!
Since version 1.9, ntfsresize takes care about safely moving around data.

Earlier versions refused to resize below a limit (last used sector on the partition) that's why defrag sometimes helped to push this limit down but not always. Ntfsresize 1.9 and up doesn't need defrag at all :)