Low Disk Space after dual boot wondows/knoppix -resize?

I need some help...

I am new at partitioning and Linux. I did, however, successfully dual boot Windows XP and Knoppix 3.4. It was quite easy, actually, and all the posts I have read about dual booting the two OSs make it overly difficult. jduff posted the best way, in my opinion, to run LILO (linux) and Windows on the same hdds or separate ones:

1)Install Windows XP on main hard disk drive or primary partition
2)Install Knoppix 3.4 on a separate hard disk drive or a secondary partition (I recommend reading up on partitioning first)
2a)Do not load LILO on MBR; put it where Knoppix is
3)Install GAG (graphical boot manager) to hard drive; it burns to first 1024 bytes of hdd
4)Reboot and enjoy!

The problem, though: I don't know what "Low Disk Space" means. I get a frequent message in my quick launch that tells me I am running out of space on drive C: (primary hdd). It is mostly used up. Does this mean I have to resize that partition? This is probably a stupid question, but I feel fine about it here in this forum.

Thanks and cheers!

I wrote the first thread hoping for a response but I should have phrased the title differently... I need to find a way to resize my first partition on my main drive. Do I have to reinstall after I format and repartition? Any help is appreciated....

nicorelli

Nicorelli,

First of all, OUCH this has got to hurt...

From what I understand, you need to increase your first partition, which is C: for Windows, thus, decreasing the size of the second partition. This can be difficult, because you will be "shifting" the starting point of the second partition, and adding to the end of the first partition. The first partition is fine, since, from what I know, most drives are filled with data, from the "front" to the "back", or start to end points. The first partition will be getting more room in the "back", but the problem I see, is in the second partition issue. In the second partition, you will not only be decreasing the size of this partition, but, also moving where it starts, farther into the drive itself. Since the drive is probably "loaded" with data in the start of the partition, this "shifting" could be critically hard for "any" repartitioning software.

What ever is loaded on the second partition, would be what software re-partitioning software I would go with... If it is loaded with Windows, use something from Windows to do it with, if it is Linux, then use something from Linux - the software has to be knowledgable of what it is going to "shift" or dissaster is going to happen. With that out of the way...

I have to be honest here, I don't have WinXP, nor do I have Knoppix v3.4, nor do I have either of them "dual-booted" on the same system, so, maybe I'm not the best person for this answer, but, am always trying to help, so, here goes...

First concern: You are probably using Knoppix to "play" with, and WinXP is your "bread and butter", so, first concern would be to keep your WinXP intact, and "ditch", so to speak, Knoppix. Get your system running without Knoppix installed, re-partition with WinXP, getting it happy first, and then re-install Knoppix to the newly re-partitioned second.

This is assuming that WinXP is on the first partition, and Knoppix is on the second partition. If Knoppix's swap is on the second partition, then its easy, if Knoppix's OS is on that second partition, this is where it is getting "hairy".

I had Win98 and Knoppix "dual-booting", but in my case, I had Win98 on one hard drive, and Knoppix on a second hard drive, changing partitions was easy, because each OS had its own hard drive, formatted by its own OS, and dedicated to its own OS. When it comes down to two OS's on the same hard drive, and one needs to be shifted in a re-partition, that gets a little to "dangerous" for me, and I can't suggest anything other than be sure you have a good backup before you do ANYTHING. I won't suggest anything but that, because I don't want to trash ANYONES system on them. This is why I suggested the backup, and be sure you are thinking of your priorities... Which OS is important, and which one is not. What OS is what you use, and is required, over the one which is just something you are "playing" with.

I had to re-install Knoppix many times, currently I am around five, because of the settings, or hardware, or configurations, but it never cost me my "bread and butter", because it never effected my Win98 running. Until I decided to go with Knoppix completely, I always was concerned about "trashing" my Win98 with Knoppix, and always had current backups of my "running" Win98.

Hopefully, someone else has done what you are suggesting, and can provide more assistance on this matter, because I don't have that much background in the two OS's, or the situation of them dual-booting, or the shifting of the partitions, and I don't want to mess your system up...

Hope this helps,
Ms. Cuddles

Cuddles,

First of all, thanks for the input. I do have knoppix 3.4 installed on a second hdd. WinXP is installed on my primary drive, with the first partition being too small, ie, "low disk space".

I did not want to have to reinstall either of the OSs, but it seems that may be my only option. So if I understand you correctly, I have decrease the size of my drive D: in order to allow for increase in size of my drive C:. Since drive D: does not have an OS on it (and, actually, not much important data), I should be able to use a WinXP re-partition program to do the trick, right?

I'll give that a try.

Nicorelli

You can try using a Partition Magic boot disk to do the repartitioning. I'm not sure if it works with linux partitions but it does work with quite a large variety.

Nicorelli,

I remember having to "shift" a hard drive with WinNT, not sure if it was "Partition Magic", or not, but it worked perfectly - no data loss or anything, was about as easy as saying this partition equals this now, and that partition equals that, and it did it all.

I would go with whatever is "popular" now, considering that was some time ago that I was using WinNT - I think it was WinNT Server 4.x, and Workstation 5 (?)

Go with what OCedHr suggests, it sounds like what I was using, and NT and XP are pretty close, as far as the file structure, I think XP uses NTFS, which is what NT used. BUT, as far as safety, be sure to back up your important data on your XP drive before attempting to "shift" any drive. You never know, something can happen, even though most of the time, it doesn't, you can never be too careful.

Hope this helps,
Ms. Cuddles

This thread is now several days old, so perhaps you have already done whatever you are going to do but....maybe there is another way: Take some stuff off your C drive & shift it to somewhere else. For instance, Windows normally defaults to putting all data in C:\My documents. Not only is this a bad idea from a data security point of view (you should never put data in with your O/S...crash your O/S & kiss your data goodbye), it could be taking up a lot of space. If you have Norton utilities, Norton backs up half the world with it's 'protected files' which can really eat up drive space. Windows usually has a large store of .cab files which are the unused (uninstalled) parts of the O/S, these are not really necessary and can be removed if you have to, although they are the last thing I would remove. Without them, if you have to install some Windows component or driver you don't now have, you will have to haul out your install disks. Finally, almost all programs for Windows default install in C:\Program Files but they don't HAVE to be there. You could remove some programs & reinstall them on your D drive, if you have one-and you should make one if you don't already have one.
For a single operating system you should have at least two partitions, one for O/S, one for data. For a dual boot Win/Linux system, you should have at least four:
1.Windows C: (hda1 to Linux) : Windows operating system normally formatted NTFS for XP. Remember most Linux cannot reliably write to NTFS systems.
2. Linux O/S (hda 5): Linux O/S. Knoppix takes a minimum 2.4 Gig, 3 or 3.5 is better.
3. Linux swap (hda6): probably about 1/2Gig if you have it, squeeze in 100MB or so if you're tight for space. The only need for much more than 1/2G is if you are going to try your hand at remastering Knoppix in which case you will need whatever it takes to get slightly over 1G combined memory + swap.
4. Data (Windows D/Linux hda7): all remaining space. format VFAT, both Linux & Windows can share this data partition.

If C is your Windows, and D is just data.

You can delete some data from D, and resize it.
Booting up knoppix, and running qtparted will let you resize partitions.

I've got 3 os's on a 4 gig drive.
Win98, FreeBSD5.2 and Libranet Linux.

Also, you can tweak some windows settings to use less space.
Items such as IE's disk cache, reduce it down to 1% and delete temporary internet files.
Empty recycle bin.
Remove unused windows components, ie.. outlook express.
Uninstall useless crap, such as the AOL Compuserve, etc stuff that's preinstalled with some Windows Machines.