How to shrink a windows partition to make more room for Linux?

[Eric Shubert]

joe at actionline.com wrote:
> My original question was, "How can I shrink the ntfs file system /dev/sda5
> shown in this screen capture: http://upquick.com/linux/gparted1.png
> to make room to increase the size of my Linux home partition /dev/sda8 ?
> I've used ntfsresize to reduce the size of the sda5 partition from 158 gig
> to 67 gig, but gparted will not allow me to shrink (resize) sda5. The
> "Resize/Move" option in gparted is grayed out as shown in the screen
> capture. So what else can I do to shrink sda5?
> 
> Among the replies so far, none address the question that I asked.
> 
> - Some emphasized the need to defrag win. I've already done that.
> - Some said use a 3rd party resizer. I've already done that.
> - Some said backup files. I've already done that.
> - One said to fire up Ubuntu to define the partitions.
> --- I don't have Ubuntu, but I do have gparted.
> - One explained that gparted cannot shrink properly when files are
> scattered. But, as I originally stated, I have already defragged,
> and I have already successfully resized the windows partition.
> - One cautioned that I will need to move sda6 and 7 into the free space
> before I can increase the size of sda8.
> 
> All that is fine and helpful ... however, it does not answer my original
> question.
> 
> The problem is that gparted will not allow me to shrink the existing
> windows partition that is already resized from 158 to 67 gig.
> 
> Again, how can I get gparted to shrink the windows partition that
> is already successfully resized?

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding, in part because you use the 
term partition when you mean filesystem. You've already used the 
ntfsresize utility to resize the ntfs filesystem (*not* partition). The 
man page for ntfsresize says that defragmentation is NOT required prior 
to resizing.

Have you read the ntfsresize man page? The Partitioning section says to 
*recreate* (not resize) the partition that contains the filesystem that 
has been resized.

I don't know the answer to your question. I suspect however that 
qtparted may not allow altering the partition size because it detects 
that the ntfs filesystem has been altered and is in a state that needs 
to be checked. I would try starting up windows, and allow it to run a 
scandisk (fsck) on the filesystem, which it should do automatically when 
you first boot it after changing the ntfs filesystem size. Then go back 
and see if qtparted doesn't allow you to resize the partition. If that 
doesn't do it, I expect  you'll need to delete the partition and re-add 
it, as the man page for ntfsresize says.

HTH.
-- 
-Eric 'shubes'