Gparted/3rd party & Windows hidden partiton

mac29

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Dec 19, 2008
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I just finally loaded 7 after it wouldn't recognize my sata drive but now I want to shrink the partition using Gparted. I have read that you cannot delete or remove the hidden system partition 7 creates (when installing to a whole drive). I believe moving it using 3rd party util may vy well corrupt the file table. Having done so before, I think that's the reason my 7 install didn't recognize the drive.

Q - I believe XP, Vista and 7 create 2 areas, on the front and the back end of the drive, that are these hidden system areas. I think I only need to worry about moving the one on the end. Anyone know if Gparted can move this "hidden system partiton" if I resize C: WITHOUT hosing MBR/file table? Sounds to me like Gparted moves it but then the table is wrong.

I don't care for the instructions I've found for not creating these areas (wish I had a better term for these, I just think of them as 'bumpers') while installing the OS; I'll be using Clonezilla for images & cloned partitions anyway.

If anyone is familiar w/Gparted first hand, that would be especially pertinent. I'm not sure if resizing will in fact cause a problem, just want to be sure before I go ahead and start loading appls. Want to be exact because I'll be learning server flavors on this disk.



Thank you,

Mac




 

nhasian

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Apr 5, 2010
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XP and Vista only create a single partition. Windows 7 creates a small system partition at the beginning of the drive.

How to Avoid 200MB Hidden System Partition From Been Created During Windows 7 Installation