Installation: Can't resize my single partition (defrag problem)

[JAnthony]

I have one big partition on a 8040Mb drive. There are files (I assume system files) at the end of the disk that defrag will not relocate, making it impossible to resize the DOS partition in preparation for install.

3rd party defrag softw. I've tried (perfectdisk, norton utilities 4.5) insists on locating infrequently accessed files at the end of the disk.

I've been advised to use Partition Magic but I can't afford to buy it at the moment.

Is there any way to find the non-relocatables and change the read-only attributes (temporarily)? Would this even help? Does anyone know a workaround?

PLEASE help if you can, thanks.
--Anthony

[Ardith]

The stuff on the end of the disk is probably your Win98 swap file. Have you tried defragging it from DOS mode?

[JAnthony]

Sorry I just got back. Silly me, http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/redface.gif I failed to notice that Norton SpeedDisk allows you to specify a free space only defrag. This worked great, no problems with the swap, everything ended up at the beginning of the disk. I used Fips and it worked great too. If there's anyone reading this that is planning on using Fips for the first time, read the docs and follow the instructions and it's easy. Thanks for the reply. http://discussions.linuxplanet.com/smile.gif

I'd like to recommend an excellent guide I got:
Linux: Installation, Configuration and Use by Michael Kofler (second ed.). It comes with RedHat 6.0. I got it here:
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=4LYHX17QOY&mscssid=7V01E7D3STS12NBQ0017QU6ALCJMF4RE&srefer=&isbn=0201596288

--Anthony

[aladdin]

if anyone is still reading this thread, i would seriously recommend using system commander and partition commander. these work great for re-sizing and allow windows and linux to work together in harmony.