Newb Needs Help Dual Booting!

[Teapot Philosopher]

Okay. Well, I tried installation, but the files on my computer are preventing me from installing because there's still files on the right which I can't seem to move at all! I've defragged a few more times and they appear as green. At the moment I'm trying out a few different defragmenting utilities. PerfectDisk trialware is what I'm using at the moment but I've also tried DirMS, Auslogics Disk Defrag, Auslogics Reg Defrag and the standard Disk Defragmenter that comes with Windows. None of them are moving the files. I've read that the files could just be virtual memory so I'm using Buzzsaw which is an On-The-Fly Defragmenter so... I'm hoping this works.

Just thought I'd let you guys know what's happening. Lol.
Thanks for all your help,
Matt

[Psychosis]

I'm kinda new here, In fact I use Ubuntu (I'm downloading Sabayon as I type this ), but I had similar doubts when I installed my first distro. (Mandriva)

I had problems with a few fragmented files on my NTFS partition. Afted digging up some information, I learned that the Windows NT Defragmenter is a really stripped-down version of a Microsoft Commercial Product.

I'll cut to the chase:
The NT Defragmenter and some commercial defragmenters do not defragment your page file (virtual memory), or your registry.

In an attempt to find a way around this, I stumbled upon this page.

One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a system.

Fortunately, the page has a downloadable program that you can run.

It's a console application, but also has a GUI. Just read the instructions on the page. I suggest you check off "defragment at next boot" and then restart Windows.

I haven't tried this particular method, but I hope that's enough to take care of the problem.

[Teapot Philosopher]

Thanks, but I've already tried that program. It worked to some extent but there was plenty left. The one you are talking about is on the Microsoft website, right? Called PageDefrag or something. PerfectDisk worked brilliantly though, so I'm gonna use that. Unfortunately it's only a trial version... So after the 30 days, if I wanna install another Linux I might have to shop around again. Lol.

Well, I'm downloading a LiveCD version of Gparted right now so I can partition this disk. The Disk Manager that comes with the Sabayon LiveCD annoys me because it keeps coming up with the same two errors. Something to do with Primary Partition and not having enough space. I went to make the XP partition smaller, but that wasn't happening because I couldn't see any option to do that. So, I guess I'll just let you know when I've tried Gparted.

Thanks for like, the millionth time!
Matt

EDIT
Okay. Gparted did not work. The option to make a new partition was faded out so I couldn't click on it, despite clicking on it repeatedly out of annoyance. The option to Resize/Move did allow me to click on it, but then the actual option of what size I want the partition to be refused to change. I am really a mess at all of this... Sabayon automatic partitioning refused to work, and now Gparted! Lol.

[darkscot]

So after the 30 days, if I wanna install another Linux I might have to shop around again. Lol.

Once you have created a Linux partition you don't have to create another when you want to change distros (unless you want to triple boot?).

Okay. Gparted did not work. The option to make a new partition was faded out so I couldn't click on it, despite clicking on it repeatedly out of annoyance. The option to Resize/Move did allow me to click on it, but then the actual option of what size I want the partition to be refused to change. I am really a mess at all of this... Sabayon automatic partitioning refused to work, and now Gparted! Lol.

When you create a Linux partition you can resize it but you cannot change its starting point. Imagine you have a hard drive where the first 50% is Windows XP and the second 50% is Linux. If you reduce the size of XP to 40% you cannot use that free 10% for Linux because you cannot move the partition.

[darkscot]

Maybe I have misunderstood? Have you managed to create a Linux partition but Sabayon says it is too small?
Or have you been totally unable to create ANY extra partition, even with Gparted?

You could also try out PartedMagic (http://partedmagic.com/). This uses Gparted for partitioning but also includes lots of other tools for changing and checking you partitions.

[Teapot Philosopher]

Thanks. Worked perfectly on my desktop, but failed on my laptop. Stupid hard drive damage apparently.