Disk compressor for partitioning?

[Red Lotus]

Hi there. I'm trying to get Red Hat Linux 7.1 installed and as I expected, the partitioning is holding me back. The thing is that if I resize the huge FAT32 Windows ME partition (which is taking up the whole disk :mad: ) then some data might be lost. This is because, I've heard, that if there happens to be data clusters in the area of the disk where the partition is being cut off, then this data will be chopped off as well. What I'm looking for is a program that will compress all the clusters of data in my Windows ME partition so that every bit of data is packed tightly at the top of the disk. In this way, no data will be lost when I chop off the bottom half of the partition.

I have Partition Magic Pro 6.0, and I'm not sure if this program is capable of compressing the disk. If it is, please tell me how to do so with Partition Magic 6.0. If it isn't capable of doing this, then please give me an URL for a program I can download or give me the name of software which I can buy. Thank you, and peez. ;)

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[ 12 August 2001: Message edited by: Red Lotus ]

[Malakin]

defrag the hard drive in winodows, then use partition magic to split it up so you have an extra partition for linux.

[Red Lotus]

Thank you! I sort of figured this out after reading a few web articles, but before I never realized what the windows defragger actually does. peez ;)

[bdg1983]

Partition Magic will actually move the data so defraging is not really necessary though it does speed up the PM process.

I've never bothered myself to defrag before using Partition Magic.