I'm trying to set up a dual boot Lenovo Ideapad that came with Windows 7.
Lenovo uses up 4 partitions out of the box. They are:
(unnamed) 14GB
LENOVO D: 30GB
SYSTEM_DRV 200MB
Window7_OS C: 400GB
I have no idea what the first 3 do. Ideally, I could shrink the Windows7_OS partition (down to, say, 100GB) and then install Ubuntu on extended partitions created in the freed space.
The first sticking point is that I can't resize ntfs partitions from gparted. The problem has been encountered before in other threads: How can I resize NTFS partition in GParted? . I have tried everything there with no luck.
I also can not seem to resize the Windows partition from Windows. The "Virtual Disk Manager" keeps throwing a cryptic "The parameter is incorrect." error when I try. I don't know what to do about that.
I tried using:
ntfsresize -s100GB -f -b /dev/sdb2
(/dev/sbd2 is the Windows7_OS partition) After that operation, the "Virtual Disk Manager" in Windows sees a 400GB "volume" with 100GB of capacity.
While it appears that I have succeeded in taking away space from Windows, resizing from either OS is still not successful for the same reasons as before.
Disabling "virtual memory" in Windows does not fix my problems. Neither does running "chkdsk
" or "chkdsk " several times. I also defragged from Windows with no luck.
What can I do?
My best current guess: make a Windows 7 install disc (how?) , wipe clean the hard drive (it's a new computer), install Ubuntu, create an extra partition, install Windows on that (which I assume will somehow leave the partition table alone), then reinstall GRUB (or maybe all of Ubuntu) to get over the MBR problem.