HDD Partition Problem

Frostmourne said:

I would clean install 7, and then virtualize Ubuntu.

although that is one way of doing it, i would prefer to have ubuntu installed, not virtualized. nothing against the idea, its just a nit-picky preference of mine.

try a wubi install. it installs ubuntu as a folder on your windows 7 partition iirc.

to be honest, i still think that the problem has something to do with the chk dsk not initializing. if thats not working the way its supposed to and it's what ubuntu tells me to run in windows in order to get the partition manager to work correctly, then something must be wrong on the windows part of the deal.

Have you tried Partition Wizard, or Paragon Partition Manager?

seekermeister said:

Have you tried Partition Wizard, or Paragon Partition Manager?

would you suggest one more over the other? paragon seems to only offer a demo version whereas partition wizard is for free.

Paragon does have a free version:

Free Partition Manager Express - Leading partitioning software! | PARAGON Software Group - free partition software, resize partition

As far as which to use...it's a matter of preference. Paragon is an installable program, thus accessible at desktop, whereas Partition Wizard is an ISO, which needs to be burned to a disk, and used at boot. Sometimes, it is necessary to reboot to perform a partitioning function, sometimes not. Toss a coin, or do as I do, and get both.

seekermeister said:

Paragon does have a free version:

Free Partition Manager Express - Leading partitioning software! | PARAGON Software Group - free partition software, resize partition

As far as which to use...it's a matter of preference. Paragon is an installable program, thus accessible at desktop, whereas Partition Wizard is an ISO, which needs to be burned to a disk, and used at boot. Sometimes, it is necessary to reboot to perform a partitioning function, sometimes not. Toss a coin, or do as I do, and get both.

okay is there anything i should be aware of before i do this partition? the only reason why im asking is because now im going to be doing a hdd partition using third party software. . . which makes me skeptical. i figured it was a pretty safe bet to do a hdd partition through windows'/linux's own partition manager, since they would handle their own file systems in their own way. hdd partitioning can be a really scary thing if its done wrong where it can possibly go to the extreme of wiping out your entire hard drive. obviously, im going to be backing up all of my data onto an external hdd before ill be going through with this nonetheless.

The number one cause of problems is operator error, either in the installation or use of a program, but that doesn't mean that it isn't possible for something to go awry, no matter how careful that you may be. Thus, the idea of making a backup is the best defense to take.

If I recall, the original goal was to resize a partition? Before doing so, it is a good idea to defrag the drive first. To best accomplish that, disabling hibernation, disabling the pagefile and disabling Shadow Copy will unlock the files on the harddrive, permiting the defragger to better consolidate the files leaving a greater amount of free space for the purpose of resizing.

EDIT: Another step that might be useful, especially if you haven't done it before, is to delete trash in the Recycle Bin, empty temp folders, etc. A program useful in facilitating this is CCleaner.

alright sooo i believe ive gotten myself into some serious trouble now with this one. i went with trying to resize the windows partition with partition wizard. once it had finished and i rebooted the computer, something bad happened. when i was about to get to the screen for me to select which operating system i wanted to run, i was given the following message:
GRUB Loading stage 1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 17
i googled it and it seems that it seems to be an issue with linux ubuntu since the GRUB (w/e it is, i wasnt quite sure to begin with) is linux based. therefore, i decided to rerun partition wizard and it turns out that the partition that held all of my data for ubuntu was completely wiped out. the actual partition itself wasnt removed, but there isnt anything in the partition (it has 0Mb used). therefore, since that particular partition doesnt have anything in it and the GRUB interface is linux based in the first place, am i best off wiping that parition using partition wizard? if i wipe that partition, would that space that it had previously occupied be considered free space afterwards? also, if i am to wipe that partition, which method is best for this case? i am given the following options in partition wizard:
-fill sectors with zero
-fill sectors with one
-fill sectors with zero and one
-DoD 5220.22-M (3-passes)
-DoD 5220.28-STD (7-passes)
before i go through with this, is this the best method to take? my windows partition has been apparently unaffected by this (it has the same amount of data in it before i resized it). however, either way, i am unable to run windows because of the error in GRUB. any help would be greatly appreciated!!