New HD: Should I use Partition Magic?

[citizenkeith]

I have a dual boot system (Fedora Core 3 and XP Pro). My drive is only 40GB, and I only partioned 10MB for Windows. I want more room for both operating systems, but don't want to go through backup/reinstall.

Ideally, I'd like to install a new drive, boot from a Partition Magic CD (or any other tool you recommend), copy each partition over to the new drive but instead of 30/10 for Fedora/XP I'd want to do something like 80/40.

Is this possible? Will PM do it, or should I use another tool?

Thanks for the help...

Keith

[kevmif]

Norton ghost will copy partitions without any worries.

Partition magic is great for re-partitioning, not sure about copying partitions tho

[citizenkeith]

Cool. My main concern is that I can resize existing partitions on the new HD. As long as I can keep my info but increase the size, I'll be happy.

[kosmosik]

1. plug the new drive as slave.
2. boot linux (still from old drive).
3. make exactly the same first partition (I mean size, for Windows. your Windows partition is first right?) - f.e. using parted or qtparted (GUI).
4. use dd to copy over old Windows partition to new (blank) partition.
(now you have new disk with only ten GB Windows partition.)
5. boot to old Windows. run paritition magic and resize your new Windows partition to size you need (40GB?)
6. still from partition magic (or you can do it from old Linux partition - it does not matter) prepare new partitions for Linux (80gb right?).
7. boot to old Linux, copy entire tree (exept /dev, /sys and /proc - they are not realy real filesystems) to new partition/s (you must mount them, when copying files remember to preserve their attributes).
8. update /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf on new Linux partition to match new layout (if something changed)
9. install grub to slave drive MBR.
10. take old drive out and plug new one as master.
11. boot - you should have new system...

you can safely experiment such way till you succeed (you always have a copy on old drive if something goes wrong).

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hard-Disk-Upgrade/ take a look here also.

[telmo]

HELL NO!
Partition Magic unfortunately is not very safe, and can sometimes mess up your partitions.
I would suggest Acronis Partition Expert. Much safer and easier to work with. (katz.ws)

[citizenkeith]

Originally Posted by kosmosik

3. make exactly the same first partition (I mean size, for Windows. your Windows partition is first right?)

No, my Linux partition is first, and my existing Windows partition is 10GB and I want it larger.

BUT... you have given me great information. I think I can figure it out from here. THANKS EVERYBODY!

[wizard]

If you use PM or Ghost to resize partitions you may run into problems with Fedora's installer next time around - I did this time. It was fairly easily fixed with sfdisk but you might want to do this yourself after you're sure everything's working so you won't have problems with Fedora upgrades.

You may want to read this thread -

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26297

[Paloseco]

PartitionMagic is a real **** i used to use it and sometimes ****ed up my whole hard disk and set it to RAW mode too.

[purefinity]

For resizing, I recommend using qtparted from a Knoppix CD.

For copying partitions, dd should work just fine.

I'm wondering why you don't just leave both disks in the machine as is, and make new partitions on the second disk as needed?

[citizenkeith]

Originally Posted by purefinity

'm wondering why you don't just leave both disks in the machine as is, and make new partitions on the second disk as needed?

Because the old drive is going to be used for storing audio files on my DAW. I have a removable IDE drive chasis in there, and I can easily swap out drives depending on the recording session.