[flynismo]

Hi all,

Have a question about partitioning my current setup.
Right now, here's how everything's running-

1. Windows XP is installed on C: drive. (250 GB)
2. Windows System Restore is on D: drive.
3. Ubuntu is on an external hard drive (K: drive) and is using the entire drive.

The external drive that Ubuntu resides on has 320GB of storage. Even after downloading god-knows-how-many programs and other stuff, the Linux system is only using up 51GB, so I have about 260+ gigs free, which is a real waste.
The C: drive that I have Windows installed on has 250 GB capacity, and I've already used up 212 gigs; leaving me with very little storage left.

There are a couple options I would like to explore, but have no idea if it is possible or not.....

1) Ideally, I would like to keep Windows on C: drive, and repartition the external drive so that I could allocate 100 GB for my Ubuntu system and the remaining 200 or so GB can be used for additional storage for Windows.

If that is not possible, option 2) would be to simply switch the drives that each OS resides on (i.e., moving Windows to the external drive and Ubuntu to drive C: ). However, I'm not sure if that would create problems or not. What I would do is copy everything from windows onto a few DVD's, and install it onto the external drive (K: drive). However, what I'm worried about is that when you run any programs in Windows, the files have to be located in their proper directories (ex., C:/Program Files/Adobe/Dreamweaver).
Since I would be moving windows to the external drive, would the computer "see" that it is on K: drive now instead of C: drive and possibly causing the programs not to work, or would I be okay if I did this?

At any rate, if it is feasible, it seems like a lot more work and I would be getting a lot less in return, so I would prefer option 1.

Can someone point me in the right direction, I'm really not sure what to do here....thanks in advance.

[devils casper]

1) Ideally, I would like to keep Windows on C: drive, and repartition the external drive so that I could allocate 100 GB for my Ubuntu system and the remaining 200 or so GB can be used for additional storage for Windows.

Its pretty easy to shrink existing and create new partition. Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and open GParted Partition Manager. Shrink partition and create new in NTFS filesystem. Windows OS will recognize it and you can install ntfs-3g package in Ubuntu to enable NTFS write access for NTFS.
You can use it as a common data storage space for both OSes.

[flynismo]

Worked like a charm

Thanks!

[devils casper]

Glad to help you !

[flynismo]

Just out of curiosity, why do Windows programs seem to be so much larger than similar Linux programs? I have several windows programs that are over 1,000 MB each, and quite a few others that are at least 400MB; whereas nearly all the Linux programs I have are usually in the single and double digits. I'm guessing that the graphics/design has a role in that, but surely there's more to it than that??