[Riverglen]

I have a new Acer machine, running Win-XP Pro. As delivered, the machine was set up with three partitions, as follows:

~6 GB Fat32 - Hidden, evidently a recovery image
~71 GB NTFS - The Windows C partition
~71 GB Fat32 - Evidently intended as a backup, used by Acer's bloatware "empowering
technology"
~4GB unallocated space.

I want to install Ubuntu 7.10, using part of the space that was allocated to the backup partition. I had intended to recover that space and allocate most of it back Windows and save 10-15 GB for Ubuntu. I used a stand alone version of GParted to delete the D partition, and was on the point of then extending the Windows C partition to fill part of the freed up space. However, when I had specified the new size for the enlarged C partition, I noticed that GParted said it was going to "move the C partition to the right and extend it" and the pending map for the drive showed a new small amount of unallocated space between the 6GP Fat32 and the apparently relocated start of the Windows C partition.

So my question is, if I had gone ahead and done this, would it have screwed up my Windows partition? I was afraid it might, and in any event, why put a sliver of unallocated space in front of it? Will the partitioning tool in the Ubuntu Live CD install wizard handle this safely if I use it to extend the Windows partition?

I took a look at the XP Disk Management tool, and it evidently will not allow you to mess with the partition that contains Windows.

[Elvandil]

Due to the hidden EISA partition and the recovery setup, any changes you make to any partitions will cause you to lose access to the recovery partition and possibly Windows. The partitioning done by the manufacturer is non-standard and proprietary. If altered, it cannot be recovered by any commercial partitioning tools. The MBR is not standard and senses the keypress for recovery.

I'd suggest a complete drive image be created so you can get back if things go sour for you.

[Riverglen]

Well, I already have an image cut for the Windows C partition. I am not a bit worried about loosing the use of the recovery partition, or the use of Acer's recovery tool. But I don't intend to scrub the recovery partition anyway. I did delete the D partition, which caused Acer's recovery tool to complain on the next boot. I cured that by disabling it as an autostart program. Based on what you tell me, I'm considering just allocating part of the space formerly occupied by the FAT32 D partition as a new smaller NTFS D partition for Windows evental use and creating the new partitions needed for Ubuntu. Would rather have just expanded the windows C, but it's really not much of a compromise.

Do you know whether GRUB will handle whatever wierd setup Acer created and set me up for dual boot properly when I install Ubuntu.

[Elvandil]

GRUB is certainly the most likely of anything to work. But deleting the EISA partition and making things more normal would insure it. I know that GRUB on the Super GRUB Disk shows the recovery partition and offers to boot to it on most machines, even if the original MBR has been modifiied or destroyed.

So I guess you can do just about anything you set out to do. It's being able to recover that always proves to be the problem. But if you have Vista recovery media, or the recovery partition is bootable with GRUB, you should be able to get back where you started even if that small EISA partition is gone.

There's no substitute, however, for a disk image to recover with.

PS. There are tools, like MBRFix and MBRWizard, as well as some of the listed partitioning tools, that allow backup and restore of the MBR. If you have backups along the way, the path back will be easier.