Re: Dual boot GNU and Windows 7

[Felix Miata]

On 2011/03/26 16:52 (GMT) Sebastian Tennant composed:

> >  I remember reading a while back that resizing Windows Vista partitions with
> >  Gparted can make it unbootable (XP should be fine though). Not sure if that
> >  is still the case, or what is the deal for Windows 7.

> Funny, I just read something similar.  As a result I thought I'd try resizing
> using Windows' own disk tool and this is what it tells me:

>   "You cannot shrink a volume beyond the point where any unmovable files are
>    located."

>         Total size before shrink: 431938 MB
>   Size of available shrink space: 201358 MB
>          Total size after shrink: 230580 MB

> Can you believe it!

> The 35 GB of data actually on the disk is somehow distributed over 230 GB of
> disk space in such a way that none of the remaining 195 GB of empty space can
> be used for anything else.  How brain-damaged is that!

Sure. You'd think the built in tool would be smart enough to handle them, but 
that's Windows!

Invariably on a newish system the only files responsible for the obstacle are 
the huge paging file and the also huge hibernation file. You can shrink, 
eliminate or move them via system settings before starting the Vista resizing 
tool, and may not even need to go to that much trouble if you boot into safe 
mode (almost like single user, with no daemons running) to perform the resize 
operation. Safe mode prevents the multitude of automatic start on boot 
programs that litter the system tray and steal so much RAM. Also not having 
all their DLLs in RAM means they aren't locked open files either.

If not using Windows' built in resizer, you can simply delete those two 
(huge) "unmovable" files by mounting the WINSYS partition after booting the 
Linux system you run GPartEd from prior to actually starting GPartEd.

More for multibooters to consider is that historically, it's inevitable that 
Windows will eventually need re-installing. So, to prevent damaging Linux 
when that time does come, read http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/install-doz-after.html 
before planning further. In particular, note that Windows' boot loader can 
start Grub, which means in part that Grub need not be the primary boot loader.

My normal procedure for setting up multiboot with Windows is to obtain the 
OEM installation (_not_ recovery) media first, then wipe completely and 
partition fully for both Windows and however many partitions I need for 
other, then install Windows from the _installation_ media, then install 
whatever else needs installing. In large part I do this to:

1-give the precious (usually faster) front of disk space to a swap partition 
and Linux system partition(s)
2-segregate Windows data on a separate much larger partition from system and 
programs, so that data is not lost through virus or trojan corruption or 
common user re-installation blundering
3-keep the (logical) WinSYS partition as small as practical (as little as 3G 
for W2K, 6G for WXP, considerably more for Vista & 7)
4-after completely installing and customizing Windows and Windows apps, clone 
the WinSYS partition to a twin partition at or near end of disk, so that when 
Windows inevitably needs to be re-installed, all I need to do is clone the 
clone back to the original space
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/