Vista NTFS -- Is there a tool to reize NTFS partations?

[otherwise]

Hello all, a simple question, but a surpringly hard one to answer.

I am building a new vista system, and want to copy the files over from the old (win2k, ntfs) system. Considering the old system only has a 20 gig hard drive and the new one a 320 gig drive, I was just going to copy the partation wholesale.

Thus, the question. Is there any tool out there to resize NTFS partations? I essentially want to create the NTFS partation which Vista will install itself to, then resize it down and copy the old computer's partation to the empty space. Alternatevly, create a Vista ntfs partation of only 100Gb or so and resize it up after copying the old partation to the new computer.

I am asking because the last time I messed with partation magic, it could not resize NTFS partations, and I am not aware of any other tools that can possibly do this.

 

[jediphx]

Vista has the tool built in, here you go

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto...free-in-windows-vista/

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: otherwise

I am building a new vista system, and want to copy the files over from the old (win2k, ntfs) system. Considering the old system only has a 20 gig hard drive and the new one a 320 gig drive, I was just going to copy the partation wholesale.

Then, why don't you just copy the files?
Just install Vista on your 320GB drive. Then, connect your 20GB drive as a slave to your new machine and copy the data?
You don't even have to manipulate partitions.

 

[otherwise]

Originally posted by: Navid

Originally posted by: otherwise

I am building a new vista system, and want to copy the files over from the old (win2k, ntfs) system. Considering the old system only has a 20 gig hard drive and the new one a 320 gig drive, I was just going to copy the partation wholesale.

Then, why don't you just copy the files?
Just install Vista on your 320GB drive. Then, connect your 20GB drive as a slave to your new machine and copy the data?
You don't even have to manipulate partitions.

I've tried just about everything, and I've never successfully copied over a filesystem intact going file by file. Everything from good old XCopy (which runs out of memory if the tree gets too deep) to special utilities. It all chokes somewhere, I'd rather take the easy way out.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: otherwise
Is there any tool out there to resize NTFS partations?

This definitely is not the easy way out.
But, it sounds like you have made up you mind!
So, here is a free tool that can resize partitions.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

 

[Nothinman]

I've tried just about everything, and I've never successfully copied over a filesystem intact going file by file. Everything from good old XCopy (which runs out of memory if the tree gets too deep) to special utilities. It all chokes somewhere, I'd rather take the easy way out.

Even though I've never seen xcopy fail like that, robocopy should work just fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've never seen XCOPY(32) run out of memory either, but I have seen it choke on various extended characters in filenames, such that it doesn't copy all files, or it copies some files with short filenames instead.

 

[otherwise]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I've never seen XCOPY(32) run out of memory either, but I have seen it choke on various extended characters in filenames, such that it doesn't copy all files, or it copies some files with short filenames instead.

Not just XCopy, a lot of other tools barf on these 🙁 I have a lot of documents in Chinese and Korean on the computer in question and various programs just completely choke on unicode or non-printable characters (i.e interpreting depreciated multi-byte character systems as single-byte systems) in the filename.

 

[otherwise]

Oh, and thanks for the advice so far! I do consider this the easy way out though because even though it's not very elegant, I don't want to deal with surprises down the road using a tool that appears to work, because in my experience too many tools just barf (some silently) when dealing with non-english metadata.