On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:34:39 +0100, birre wrote:

> On 2008-03-28 05:35, ray wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:00:34 +0000, heavytull wrote:
>>
>>> Magic partition failed while redimisioning the winXP partition, now
>>> winXP won't boot (actually it boots, but some time after it restarts
>>> the pc, even in 'safe mode'), linux won't mount its partition. is
>>> there any tool under linux that will help?
>>
>> Probably not now, but I have indeed used 'gparted' to resize NTFS
>> partitions successfully.
>
> I read somewhere that NTFS has something secret in the middle of the
> filesystem, in the FAT area, even if they maybe call it something else
> now. So redusing the size 30/40% is often no problem, but at 50% or
> more it can step on something totally undocumented and proprietary
> making resize to fail.
>
> But that is what I read somewhere claimed by someone else, all NTFS I
> ever had was liberated before they even did a boot for the first time.

NTFS sub-allocates files less than the minimum allocation unit size into
the directory entry table. It is inherently unstable.

You should never repartition any drive of any format without a backup...
unless you're prepared to lose the data.

--
"Remain calm, we're here to protect you!"