HDD Partition Problem

hey everyone! so ive been having some problem with partitioning my hdd. the reason why i was hoping to do this was because i also have linux ubuntu installed on my pc through dual bootup (not virtualization) and was hoping to free up more space for ubuntu. although this may seem to deal more with a different os, it's actually more of a problem with windows 7. ive tried partitioning the hdd through both ubuntu and windows 7 and neither method worked out. i have defragmented my hdd through windows. when i run the partitioner in ubuntu, im given the message that i need to run check disk in windows before it can partition the hdd. when i try to run check disk in windows however, it tells me it will do the operation on the next start-up. however, it never actually initializes the check disk. ive tried both rebooting my pc and shutting it down and ive also run the check disk as an administrator. any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Boot up on your Ubuntu CD in Live mode and make the changes. Since the OS's are using the drive they cannot make the changes.

i just tried the live disk and. . . it still gave me the same message. it allows me to resize the hdd where windows 7 is installed but only by .0001 of a mb (or something along those lines). ive attached an image file to what i see on my screen and it again tells me to run chk dsk /F on windows. also, the partition that i have highlighted on the left hand side of the screen is the drive i need to partition, and the message on the right is what i see when i click on the exclamation point to the left of that partition.

With the live Ubuntu cd you have to turn the swap off to adjust partitions at times. I have heard that repartitioning W7 is better done from the MS side though.

So let me get this right you want to reduce /dev/sda3 and then give the freed space to the Ubuntu partitions?

So let me get this right you want to reduce /dev/sda3 and then give the freed space to the Ubuntu partitions?

yes thats exactly what i was hoping to do!

When you try to Shrink the volume in Windows 7 in Computer Manager > Disk Management it will not let you? Or does it give you an error?

have you tried defragmenting the drive from within windows first?
then use disk management like WindowsStar says
(Start -> right-click on computer -> manage -> disk management)
Try booting from your windows install disk (if you have one) and run the repair disk thing

WindowsStar said:

When you try to Shrink the volume in Windows 7 in Computer Manager > Disk Management it will not let you? Or does it give you an error?

hey everyone, sorry for the delay in the responses. windows in fact DOES allow me to shrink the volume (its not grayed out), but i cant give it an amount to shrink the volume by. all that i have is a zero in the space where i can put in the value for how much to shrink it by, but the arrows to increase/decrease are grayed out. ive attached an image as to what i see on my screen to make this more clear. also, in response to the defragmenting option, i had forgotten to mention that i had already done that before i tried shrinking the volume.

I would clean install 7, and then virtualize Ubuntu.