How to use gparted live windows xp

RAID devices in Linux are denoted by letters md followed by a single letter. For instance, md0, md1, md6, these are valid examples for RAID devices. There is no strict relation whatsoever between md devices and physical hard disks and their partitions. For example, md0 could be a RAID 0 device, spanning physical sda1 and sdb1 partitions. It could also be a RAID 1 device, spanning physical sda1 and sdb2 partitions. In both cases, the device name would remain the same, while the physical topography underneath would be different.

Here's an example:. The RAID partitions are marked with the raid flag more about those later. One thing worth noting is that on sda6 , GParted is unable to recognize the filesystem. This is because the RAID configured on that partition is such that sda6 does not provide all the information on the filesystem used, preventing GParted from properly classifying the partition. We're using RAID 0, known as striping on sda6 and sdb6 , which converts these two partitions into a single device. Therefore, each partition contains only half the information, hence deciding on what data is contained cannot be deducted from just looking at a single partition in the pair.

This should not bother you, as it's perfectly all right. However, you should remember that this can happen - and know what it means. We will talk about this in great detail in a dedicated tutorial. Another example, this time using the command-line utility fdisk , here's what a RAID layout might look like:. Notice the Linux raid autodetect filesystem. This means that partitions sda1 and sdb1 might be used in a RAID configuration.

What and how exactly, we will focus on that in a separate article. Again, do not get flustered if you find this short sub-section too technical.

A separate tutorial will explain RAID in detail. To this end, you will have to use other utilities. For now, though, it is important that you understand what RAID is what it looks like, so you can properly identify the layout and change it accordingly if needed. However, it is different in being able to allocate any which bit of hard disk space into logical sub-groups, known as Volume Groups, each containing one or more Logical Volumes.

The easiest way to visualize LVM is as a space-restriction-free partitioning on top of an existing physical disk layout. In order words, no matter how many disks or partitions you have, you can ignore them and use a higher order of hierarchy known as logical volumes, managed by LVM. Above, you can see an example from the default Fedora 11 installation. Please take a look at the Physical View and Logical View separately.

Let's try to understand what we see. The Physical View tells us our Volume Group sits on sda2 , a primary partition. Logical View shows us what is contained inside each Volume Group, ignoring the actual physical devices. In our case, we have a single Volume Group, which contains two Logical Volumes, root and swap. For all practical purposes, we do not know or care what configuration exists underneath.

Furthermore, this arrangement could span any number of partitions. Here's what the same layout above looks like in GParted:.

We have a small EXT3 partition that is used to boot the operating system. You can tell this by the boot flag. And then, we have an unknown filesystem on sda2 , which is our LVM; again notice the flag. The filesystem is unknown because the partition may contain several Groups, each with several Volumes, each with a different filesystem. So the question is, which of the possible choices should GParted choose. LVM uses a tricky notation. We won't discuss it in detail here.

However, you should be aware of the facts. Remember this when we review different types of partition flags later. The limitation of only four primary partitions is critical when considering a future setup.

It definitely forces us to carefully think through our installation needs and requirements. Windows is a good example. To have Windows XP, Windows 7, etc function properly, they must be installed on primary partitions. To make it even worse, the first primary partition. Take a look at my Windows 7 review, including the partition. Windows 7 ungenerously grabbed no less than three primary partitions for itself! BSD operating system flavors also like primary partitions.

So does Solaris. Take this into consideration when planning multi-boot setups. Linux is far more flexible and can be installed on any partition. Because of this, it is always a good idea to use logical partitions for Linux, when you can, so you do not waste the precious few primary partitions. So, now we have a basic understanding of what to expect. Let's start using GParted and review real-life test cases.

The first thing to do is to launch the application. The exact location of the utility in the menus will vary from one distro to another. Whether you're working in-vivo or from a live CD, you'll need administrative root privileges to work with partitions. Now, before we use GParted, let's make a quick look of its functions. When you launch GParted the first time, it will scan the existing devices on the machine and present a layout for each hard disk separately. It will open displaying the information for the first disk as recognized by BIOS.

Something like this:. This means you can perform every tasks in two different ways. Partition layout, if it exists, is displayed on a visual ribbon, with different colors marking different partitions and their filesystems. Free hard disk space will be marked in gray. Free spaces on existing partitions will be marked in white. Partition space filled with data will be marked in yellow, with the visual fill-up bar roughly corresponding to actual percentage taken.

The same information is also shown in the table form below the color bar. The second column, Filesystem indicates the filesystem the partition uses, if any. Different filesystems are marked by different colors, so there are no mistakes. If a partition is in use by the system, there will also be a key symbol displayed near the partition, indicating it is used mounted and that operations cannot be performed on it.

Unlike Windows, which separates drives by their letter and treats each individually, all filesystems on Linux are mounted under a single tree, aptly called root. Even if you have network shares used by the system, they are accessed the same way as local files, by changing path into one of the directories or sub-directories. The Extended partition has no mountpoint, because it is not used directly.

Step 2. Once you boot to GParted to see the following screen, please choose the default setting GParted Live by default. Step 3. Then, you will be required to choose keymap, language, mode and other settings.

It is advised to choose the default settings. Step 4. Then the GParted window will open. No matter you want to use GParted to extend Windows boot partition or other data partition, there must be unallocated space on the either right side or left side of the target partition. The previous content shows it requires too many complicated steps to extend Windows system partition via GParted.

Step 5. Then go for the default language, mode and other settings and press Enter. Step 6. Then the GParted window will open. Step 7. Now, select a piece of unallocated space on your second disk. Step 8. When you click the Paste button, a new window will open that requires you to define how much of the unallocated space to use. If it is not enough, you can resize the partition to make more room.

Step 9. One of the best programs out there is GParted. Basically, your hard drive is divided into one or more segments called partitions. GParted is a program you can use to make changes to the partitions on your hard disk, such as deleting a partition, resizing a partition, or copying a partition. It does all of this without deleting any of your data. You can also use it to enable or disable partition flags such as boot and hidden. It should be set to GParted Live, which is the default setting.

You can also choose from other modes or perform a memory test.