using gparted cd

 

The gparted web site is here. it exists as a livecd, and is also available as a liveusb image.

You will want the 0.3.1-1 release for older machines because it's the last thing that works. Use the latest release for newer machines.
Try the latest to see if it works on the machine first and if it doesn't try the older 0.3.1-1 version. You should probably NOT use 0.3.1-1 with Vista!

Later versions can copy and move and resize a vista partition, however, you will need to know a few things. for vista, copying a system partition invalidates the boot loader. resizing a partition renders Vista unbootable and will require you to boot to your Vista DVD and repair the OS. It is also possible to use GParted to move Vista partition, but you need Vista cd-dvd, to repair Vista Boot Manager. Some details are available here. Summarized steps in a kind of howto.

copying a system xp partition invalidates the boot loader on the destination disk. there is a suggested method for installing grub to boot windows, but know that when copying any system partition, you must disconnect the original disk and leave it alone before booting.

  1. If your computer was in hibernation, boot your computer and take it out of hibernation. it's the best thing you can do. You can't even mount the partition with ntfs-3g or gparted if the windows was hibernated or if it was scheduled for a chkdsk /f at next boot. If you have scheduled a chkdsk /f or chkdsk /r on next reboot, reboot and finish that first (gparted will know about it and will choke).
  2. have the cd in the drive before booting the machine, and don't wait until the last second to put it in and hope the drive recognizes it in time (unless you know your drive and system *really* well).
  3. 2nd trick is to watch for the "press any key to boot cd" prompt while you are booting. Easy to miss, I usually end up doing this twice to get it right... Otherwise it just boots to the hard disk, and we don't want that.
  4. press the Enter key at all the prompts (keyboard type, mouse, display resolution, language, etc).
  5. UNIX should start, then the GUI, then gparted should start scanning drives.
  6. move, copy, resize your partitions like you want them. Note: copying an XP/2000/Vista system partition will not work. doing this actually requires some registry editing too, among other things... which this tool does not do. Buy a copy of Casper 5.0 if you want to clone XP or upgrade to a larger hard disk.
  7. after you are done doing all your changes, click the apply changes button & go for lunch.

ntfs-3g (System Rescue CD, gparted LiveCD)

The hard way (this also works as a windows system rescue - access the files when you otherwise couldn't boot windows!):

ls /dev/sda*
ls /dev/hda*
(you will be looking for any hda or hdb or hdc sda sdb sdc etc that has a number appended to it - these are partitions. sda=SATA,hda=IDE)
mkdir /mnt/c ; mkdir /mnt/d
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/c
(if this fails, use ntfsfix on the partition - note: it doesn't always work, and it makes Vista unbootable!)
cd /mnt/c
ls

( ls, actually ls -al is same as dir, ls is same as dir/w). Instead of rename or ren or move you use mv.
Instead of copy you use cp.
Instead of del or delete use rm.

Remember on UNIX there are no drive letter naming conventions like A: and C:.

Devices (drives) are mounted to a directory like /dev/hda and /dev/sdb or and partitions have a number appended to the device path (/dev/sda1 for partition 1 - partitions start with 1, not 0). Usually you want to mount a partition using -t vfat for FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and -t ntfs-3g for NTFS. Simply add the partition number to the end of the device path if you want the partition instead of the whole raw disk. When you are done using the ntfs partition, unmount the partition:

umount /mnt/c or umount /dev/sda1

You must make a directory first before you mount to it. then you can mount+unmount a devide to the directory as many times as you like. because the directory is in ramdisk, once the power is turned off, the contents of that ramdisk will be gone.

Please note that there is no provision in gparted for chntpw (change password). chntpw does not include the utility that can make registry changes to the windows registry (but the ISO does). You can find chntpw on the System Rescue cd. The original site and ISO for chntpw is here. On the system rescue cd you can start gparted first by booting with systemrescuecd and then with startx.

I don't totally recommend gparted yet for Vista partitions. It is not advanced very far in that direction yet and doesn't work for some operations (move,resize).

please note that UNIX is case-sensitive, possibly regardless of NTFS.