On 2/26/07, Kelly Terry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Just curious, how does "no important data to back up - just the
> > windows install with drivers and very little software." consume
> > nearly 55GB ?
>
> Okay, so you did say he's only using about 5GB (my reading
> incomprehension there), but it still makes me wonder why after the
> defrag you don't see a full 70GB hunk of space at the end...
>
The defrag left a portion of the disk used somewhere in the middle. I
don't know why it left that data unmoved but I at least have 20 gig at
the end. Thanks for the link. I just d'loaded gparted and will give
it a try.
I'm likely too late to respond... hope everything went well.
5GB is a small amount to copy to an external USB drive, unless the
laptop does not have USB 2.0. If lacking USB 2.0 I'd put the drive in
a desktop via an IDE connector or in another laptop with/USB 2.0 and
then boot 'knoppix 2' using partimage to copy the ntfs partition.
Don't forget to copy the MBR off the previous system as well -
although that's pretty easy to fix if you do forget, should things go
awry.
It's worth noting that while 5GB is not a lot of data it can take an
extraordinary amount of your time to rebuild a system if it gets
screwed up. I've had good & bad experiences with gparted. Backup the
data first & save yourself some potential pain. 160GB external USB
2.0 drives(the small 2.5" ones) are $130 at Costco.
Re: the unmovable files, one large one is likely the paging file. Use
the following to defrag upon reboot so it's not open for exclusive
access:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/PageDefrag.mspx
If your buddy ever wants to sell his laptop or revert to a point in
time before you put Linux on it, it might be nice to have a backup of
it with original(or close to original) software/drivers.
--
Lars
/*
PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net
Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
Don't fear the penguin.
*/
