Changing Partition Size in XP **FIXED**

[Scarpozzi]

I installed Linux on my laptop. I originally had XP with 2 partitions. I increased the size of C drive by 10GB and dumped the other 25GB to make room for Linux.

After the install, everything works, but I can't access the 15GB I added to C drive. It shows up as a 38GB drive in My computer, but Computer Management, as well as the partition tables all show 48GB. I tried extending the volume by using DISKPART(done it a million times on 2003 Server), but it's saying it may not be valid for extending.

So...what other FREE utilities can extend Windows without trashing my files? Thanks,

-Scar

UPDATE: Alright...I got it. After I resized the disk, it still referenced the old size in the Master Boot Record. To reset this, I used TestDisk:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

It's a Windows utility that runs locally in the dos shell. It was able to reset the Boot Record, then the MTF was inconsistant with the disk, so I changed it. From there, I restarted the system and got blue screens upon reboot. I pulled out the XP CD and went into the recovery console and ran CHKDSK /F /R and restarted.

It was able to adjust and now I can see the whole 48GB.

 

[Scarpozzi]

It looks like Diskpart is actually stating that it's 48GB too, so it's not allowing me to extend it. I guess I'm going to need something that can extend what NTFS is showing. So it's the filesystem and not the partition.

 

[Sink41]

You could try running check disk and seeing if it fixes anything. (right click on drive, properties, tools)

 

[Scarpozzi]

Originally posted by: Sink41
You could try running check disk and seeing if it fixes anything. (right click on drive, properties, tools)

I'm not sure if that would do much for the FAT tables...that's what I need to find a way to edit... I may give it a try after I work out some driver dependencies in my linux install.

 

[postmortemIA]

gparted.

 

[thegorx]

Do you have a desktop or something to back up the partitions to ?
I always back up, then create partitions, then restore, that way you never have to worry about messing things up and you never have to wait for programs to resize a partition, in some cases it's fast and in others resizing can take longer than backing up and restoring.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Alright...I've been knee deep in linux configurations on that side for the last day (wireless, video drivers, glx config, etc)...I'm finally getting back to working on the NTFS issue.

I ran CHKDSK and let it go through the process of rescanning the drive. It found some errors, but didn't increase the size of C drive.

I downloaded gparted's live cd from sourceforge and it detected the full 48GB. So there wasn't really anything to resize from what I could tell. Seeing it from that view, it showed all free space as free space...it didn't matter if it was actually showing up in the file system or not.

Diskpart is showing 48GB on the volume.

So the partition size in Computer management is showing 48GB. The problem is the available capacity is 15GB less. According to diskpart, the volume size is 48GB, where the heck is windows reading its capacity from? Is it just a header somewhere in the NTFS FAT somewhere? There's got a be a way to reset it.

 

[Scarpozzi]

UPDATE: Alright...I got it. After I resized the disk, it still referenced the old size in the Master Boot Record. To reset this, I used TestDisk:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

It's a Windows utility that runs locally in the dos shell. It was able to reset the Boot Record, then the MTF was inconsistant with the disk, so I changed it. From there, I restarted the system and got blue screens upon reboot. I pulled out the XP CD and went into the recovery console and ran CHKDSK /F /R and restarted.

It was able to adjust and now I can see the whole 48GB.