Sorry that this is slightly OT, but in my defence, I intend to install Linux (and probably others).
I just bought a new computer with Windows Vista preinstalled; and though there is no love between me and MS, I would like to keep it (I paid for it after all). I have 2 x 500GB HDD. The extra disk has one large NTFS partition, but as it's empthy, so I can handle that one. The main disk however, has one large partition (455GB) with Vista, and one small partition ("Recovery") of 10GB -- all in NTFS.
As the large partition is mostly empthy; I would like to resize (shrink) it, and put one or two new partition(s) between the two existing one -- one of them being the extended partition.
I have a gParted live CD, so I was thinking about using that.
My questions:
*Is it possible to shrink a NTFS partition with gParted, and create a new (extended) partition between the existing ones?
*Must I prepere the partition I want to shrink... e.g. defragment it?
*Do I risk (with gParted) to shrink it too much, and corrupting my files?
*Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of?
I've googled it, and it seems that often Vista refuses to boot after it's partition has been resized...:
*Is this a problem? Personal experiences...
*Can I prevent it from happening?
*If it happen, how can I recover from it (preferbly without reinstalling everything)?