[GRLUG] backup/restore & changing partition size

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 11:19 AM, L. V. Lammert <lvl at omnitec.net> wrote:
> Been having problems trying to move a partition to a smaller physical size
> (but plenty of room for the file system) on a Windoze embedded box w/NTFS
> (i.e. the original partition was 50GB w/10GB of files, .. the new drive
> is a 30GB SSD).
>
> Partimage or Clonezilla won't work, as it's low level and must use the
> same partition size or bigger; tar tools won't work, as they do not get
> the MBR (though that can be done manually).
>
> Anyone dealt with a problem like this?

The crux of your problem is that your filesystem may have file data
(including that of "unmovable" files) near the end of the filesystem's
image block, so shrinking filesystems is a tricky process. Add in that
NTFS isn't very well supported, and that there are several versions of
that filesystem, and it becomes tricky to find a decent non-Windows
tool to do the job.

A Vista or Win7 machine's fdisk can shrink the partition for you,
including that "unmovable" data, so long as it's not your system
partition (or is it so long as it's not mounted? I forget). I've had
to do that a couple times.

-- 
:wq