Quick Q for Dann

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:02 pm

Hey Dann, you were talking on the show about resizing your ntfs partition, and how it took forever. What program were you using? I was planning to help a friend install Ubuntu Edgy this weekend, and if it's going to take ages to do the partitioning, then maybe we should use a second disk.

I've downloaded the latest GParted live CD, and plan to use that, but it would be nice to get an idea about how long it will take if you used something similar, or to know if you used some Windows partitioner. Not sure how big his hard drive is, but I imagine around 80 gigs, given the rest of the system description...

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:18 pm

It will take longer the more fragmented the drive is. If you do a defrag in Windows prior to installing Ubuntu it shouldn't take long.

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:25 pm

Good to hear. I hope I'll be able to report of a Linux convert soon.

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:43 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:It will take longer the more fragmented the drive is. If you do a defrag in Windows prior to installing Ubuntu it shouldn't take long.

I would like to second this opinion. The computer I'm using right now, I wanted to set up as a dual boot. I ran Windows XP defrag twice (didn't take long because it was a brand new computer) then ran gparted and it would done in seconds on a 40 gig drive. Then installed Ubuntu, which also was quick.

I was surprised at what Dann said on the show. Something didn't sound right there.

Post by **dann** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:48 pm

I was a bit surprised at how long it took too. I used the simple ubuntu installer to repartition the drive and resize the ntfs partition. The first time I did not defrag the drive. That's when it took over an hour to to the resize. I did not let it complete and crossed my fingers on a reboot.

Back in windows I defragged and all that but the only thing I could not defrag at the time was my vmware image. I was in the process of using it for work related stuff. Not the best idea to defrag and still work, I know.

Anyway, I'm not sure how long the whole process took as I started when I left work. About 10 minutes later it was still going.

The drive was 36gb in size, I resized the ntfs partition to 24 gb.