Partition issues....HELP!!!

For seeing any secondary partition resized you can use any one of a number of programs there. For the OS/system boot primary however you can't be booted into the OS installed on it when trying to shrink or grow it.

The advantage of a tool like GParted is being booted live from a cd without any part of Windows running referring back to what SIW2 was pointing to earlier about unmovable files. Since GParted is free and versatile it tends to make that a preferred tool for seeing the Vista primary reduced in size. If you decide to boot more then one OS at some point it will be quite useful there as well.

I don't where you heard that nonsense. The latest builds automatically detect and adjust to your monitor's native resolution. Other then that the tool simply loads into ram in a non instrusive manner. The latest builds are only about 52mb in size.

For something that would cook a video card you would looking the ATI ocing tool or something along those lines. GParted on the other hand is a lightweight drive partitioning tool. It doesn't change things as far as other hardwares are concerned.

I would try a much, much hugher ratio like "0%"!!! In fact I just finishing resizing the OS primaries as well as recovery partitions on 3 separate drives here with the live GParted cd and then booted into both 7 RCs and Vista each on their own drive without one concern!

You'll notice that the three 500gb drives now all see equal sized partitions; one for OS, the other for backup and recovery and not one issue. It is still a good idea to backup anything you don't want to lose prior to any partition changes in the event of any mishap being seen.

Which release did you go for? Once you first arrive at the main gui all hard drives are being scanned as they are being detected in order to list each one and any existing partitions and size information. The GParted screen should be seen as a large window as well where the first drive like the first ide or number #1 sata is in plain view.

To select a different drive you look on the right side of the menu bar where the button found there brings down the list of drives as sda1, sda2 for a drive with two primaries. Some additional screenshots you should look over for understanding how drives and partitions are shown are seen at GParted -- Screenshots

For resizing any partition you simply click on the intended once and click the resize button seen on the menu bar to bring up the slide bar with up and down arrows with the increments seen on those. For a a quick and easy method you click and hold on one end of the slide bar indicator shown there to see vertical clamps grasp the end and simply move that while watching the drive space counter increments.

Once you have the primary down as far as needed you then click the apply button and answer the confirmation prompt that comes up to watch that go through the routine. It will take a few minutes as you watch the scoll bar going back and forth until that stops.

Before all that take notice of how much free drive space is available on the C Vista primary there. And remember that ubuntu won't require any large partition to run from being a small distro in comparison to the larger server types like Mandriva, Fedora, and other Red Hat distros.

You don't to see a large change for Vista at this point being a first timer with ubuntu and shouldn't need much over 10-15gb. That will be plenty of room for the root/system partition leaving room for the 3-4gb optional extended swap. That also tends to maintain the partition table for the Windows primary not seeing a large change.

Davy7RC said:

I downloaded and burned the GParted disc, but I tried to ues it and there's no clear directions to use it. I know to go into boot menu and bot from the DVD-CD( for me it's (E:) I can get to the first menu but from there it starts scanning for seems like hours and the only way to stop it was to do a hard reset by holding the power button down til it turned off...Some help????

Davy Here is a link to a good how to resize with gpart. It also has a link to download the gpart iso. It has some pictures and might give you some clues to what you need to get done. I used it and it was strange acting but it got the job done and I have not seen evidence of it since. so it do its job then you take the cd out and its gone. good luck.hope you enjoy!
Using GParted to Resize Your Windows Vista Partition :: the How-To Geek