Linux 101: Use Knoppix to resize partitions for dual-boot installs

by Chad Perrin | Aug 16, 2006 3:34:00 PM

Tags: Operating systems, UNIX, OPEN SOURCE, Chad Perrin, Knoppix Linux, Linux, operating system, hard drive, Microsoft Windows

Takeaway: In those cases where multiple systems or virtual machine environments for multiple operating systems isn't appropriate, the option of installing a Linux-based OS on the same machine as a Microsoft Windows install is the best answer. Such a setup is often called a multi-boot, or dual-boot, system, and it requires re-partitioning of the hard drive. The best tool for resizing your system partitions is a Knoppix LiveCD distribution of Linux, with the QTParted partition manager application.

Someone new to Linux-based operating systems, coming from the world of Microsoft Windows, might want to ease himself into using Linux rather than quitting Windows cold turkey. The preferred way to do that is usually to find some secondary computer that's not really being used for anything else and install a user-friendly Linux distribution on it. Another option is to use a virtual machine, though that's rarely something the Linux newbie will want to set up. A third possibility is to simply run a LiveCD distribution when you want Linux, which boots the OS from a CD without touching any of the data on the hard drive.

Sometimes, these options aren't solutions to the problem the user has, and sometimes they simply don't achieve what the user wants. Sometimes, someone wants to have both Linux and Windows available with full hard drive access, but doesn't need to have both running at the same time, even if he's an expert in the use of Linux. In any of those cases where multiple systems or virtual machine environments for multiple operating systems isn't appropriate, the option of installing a Linux-based OS on the same machine as a Microsoft Windows install is the best answer. Such a setup is often called a multi-boot, or dual-boot, system.

Needs of a dual-boot system

The first set of requirements for setting up a dual-boot system is obvious: a computer and two operating systems. The hardware specifications of the computer that you need will vary depending on what you need the computer to do, and on the specific software you will be installing. For example, NTFS partitions for Windows XP generally cannot be made any smaller than seventeen gigabytes by partition resizing tools. As such, you should probably assume right away that any hard drive space you will need for a dual-boot system will at minimum include 17GB of Windows space.

Second, ensure you protect what you cannot afford to lose. This usually means you should back up all the data on your computer before starting the process of changing the system configuration. This is especially important if you have to resize partitions to make room for more operating systems on your hard drive.

Third, you must have unused hard drive space set aside for all the installations. Each operating system needs its own hard drive partition, and you may want more than one partition for some of them. It will be easiest to set up partitioning for multiple operating system installs if you are starting from scratch, or if you can devote a separate hard drive to each operating system. Things get more difficult if you have to alter the partitioning on a drive already in use, but it can be done -- and that is the problem this article aims to solve.

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Check out the TechRepublic Linux 101 Wiki page for other tutorials exploring the intricacies of the Linux operating system.

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Tools for partition resizing

There are tools that can be used from within Windows or as a stand-alone bootable toolset for resizing existing partitions on your hard drive. One of the best-known is Partition Magic, a commercial application from Symantec that first became popular more than a decade ago. As of this writing, it is available for purchase from Symantec's online store for just over fifty US dollars.

Some Linux distributions include partition management tools that support resizing as part of their installation routines. These tools vary in their reliability and usefulness, particularly as related to NTFS partitions, depending on the specific tool used. However, many distributions expect that you will already have drive space available for the necessary partitions, or that you are willing to simply delete some already existing partition(s) to make the space you need. As such, they may not provide partition resizing tools during the install process.

Probably the best combination of cost, availability, ease of use, and reliability for a tool to resize your system partitions is a Knoppix LiveCD distribution of Linux, with the QTParted partition manager application. It is free, available over the Internet, has a friendly point-and-click interface, and works beautifully for resizing even partitions formatted with recent versions of NTFS (the default filesystem for Windows XP). You can download a Knoppix ISO, otherwise known as a disk image, from the Knoppix Web site.

Once you have the disk image, you can burn it to disk to make a bootable CD using any of a number of CD burning applications that support disk images such as Nero Ultra Edition and Roxio Easy Media Creator. You will have to investigate how this is accomplished with whatever application you choose to use, and make sure you are creating a bootable CD from disk image rather than simply recording the ISO on the CD. The built-in CD burning capability of Windows XP unfortunately does not support burning bootable CDs from ISO disk images. If someone you know has a Linux system handy, he or she can probably burn it for you with free software included with his or her Linux distribution.

Resizing partitions with Knoppix

Your first step, if you use a fragmenting filesystem such as FAT32 or NTFS, is to defrag the partition. This is of critical importance, since resizing without defragmenting first can result in lost data or even a useless filesystem when you are done -- and if you didn't care about what was on your filesystem, you probably would have simply deleted the partition and created different partitions in its place rather than resizing.

Once this is accomplished, insert your Knoppix CD (or DVD, as there are bootable DVD versions of Knoppix available now) into its drive and reboot the system. You may need to adjust BIOS settings on your computer to ensure that it will boot from the CD. When it first starts up, you get a splash screen with a prompt that says "boot:". There are instructions for how to get help on special boot options, but you shouldn't need to do anything other than press the Enter key to boot with defaults. The boot screen should look something like Figure A.

Figure A

Knoppix boot screen

Be patient. Knoppix takes a while to boot because it is loading a fully-featured desktop operating system with quite a few applications installed from a CD, which has much slower access times than a hard drive. Once the bootup procedure finishes, the Konqueror Web browser will be open in the middle of the screen, pointed at a local copy of a Knoppix information Web page. Feel free to see what it has to offer, but if all you want to do is change the partitioning scheme of your hard drive, close or minimize the browser window to get it out of the way. Once that is done, you should have a clear desktop, with some icons along the left-hand side and a taskbar (called "the panel" in the terms of KDE, the window manager that provides your GUI environment's appearance in Knoppix) along the bottom of the screen (Figure B).

Figure B

Knoppix GUI

Next, open the K menu at the bottom-left corner of the screen (Figure C) with a single click. Move your mouse pointer to the System submenu. Inside the System submenu, you should see an item called QTParted: click on that (Figure D). This will open the QTParted partition management tool. It has a layout something like the Windows Explorer file browser that is familiar to Microsoft Windows users, with one pane of the window on the left allowing quick navigation through the filesystem with a hierarchical view, and another on the right that shows the contents of the currently selected directory.

Figure C

K menu button

Figure D

QTParted

It might help to resize the QTParted window to fill the entire screen. You can maximize it by right-clicking on the title bar, where it should say something like "qtparted v0.4.4", and choosing the "Maximize" option, or you can left-click on the maximize button between the window-close button and the minimize button, at the left end of the title bar.

Once that is done, click on the "Disk" icon on the left that corresponds with the drive whose partition scheme you want to rearrange. You may have to click on more than one of them, choosing one at a time until you find one that has all the partitions on it you expect to find for your computer. In the case of the example screenshot Figure D above, /UNIONFS/dev/sda is the hard drive of the computer that was booted into Knoppix. It is shown in Figure E with the first partition, a Windows XP NTFS partition, highlighted.

Figure E

XP NFTS partition

To resize a partition, right-click on the listing for the partition you want to resize, and choose the &Resize option in the menu that comes up. This will open a "Resize partition" dialog (Figure F), which gives you form fields where you can set the new partition size you want to create. It also provides you with a warning message, recommending that you back up all data on the partition before proceeding. Assuming you have been following the advice of this article so far, you will already have backed up any important data.

Figure F

Resize partition

The form fields in this dialog window allow you to choose whether you will specify partition sizes in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). You can either specify the new size of the partition you want to resize, or specify the total amount of free space you want on the drive after resizing is accomplished. It is probably more helpful to work with GB rather than MB for this operation, because it is highly unlikely you will need to be so exacting with partition sizes that individual megabytes need to be counted. Once you set the size you want, click the "OK" button to make the changes. This does not immediately put the changes into effect: you still have time to make more changes, and to change your mind, if you like.

Finishing up

When you are finished making all the changes you need, click the "Commit" button on the toolbar at the top of the window, which has what appears to be a floppy disk icon on it. Do this only if and when you are sure of the changes you want to make.

When you're all done, you can exit the program and restart your computer. To restart the computer from within Knoppix, click on the K menu again, and choose the "Log Out..." menu item. A dialog will appear with words such as "End Session for Knoppix" at the top, providing buttons for options such as "End Current Session" (which simply logs out the user account you are using, and is probably useless to you), "Turn Off Computer", and "Restart Computer". It is almost certain that the restart option is the one you want.

As the operating system is shutting down, one of the last things it will do is attempt to eject the CD. You may have to open it yourself by pressing the eject button, if your hardware is not compatible with the eject utility that is used to eject the CD at this point. Remove the Knoppix CD from the tray, and replace it with the installer CD for whatever operating system you plan to install now. Assuming it is a Linux distribution, you will have an opportunity during the install process to specify how you want to partition the free space on the drive.

Though it may be a scary proposition for new Linux users, hard drive repartitioning using a Knoppix LiveCD is actually a quick and easy operation. It can also be used to change the characteristics of a Windows system's partitioning scheme just for use with Windows. This, along with many other applications useful for system configuration changes for both Microsoft Windows and Linux-based operating systems, makes it a valuable addition to a system administrator's toolbox.

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Alternative: System Rescue CD tommy higbee | 08/29/06

This is true. apotheon | 09/03/06

Resize partition Tech easy | 08/30/09

Using a virtualization product is easier jtokach | 02/01/07

RE: Linux 101: Use Knoppix to resize partitions for dual-boot installs mlmorr0@... | 07/01/07