I just got done replacing the disk in my Dell Inspiron laptop. Since I dual boot between XP and Linux the original 80GB drive was becoming cramped.

Dell said a 120GB drive was the largest I could use. My local computer store was willing to let me try a 320GB drive and return it if it didn't work.

The basic clone procedure in the first post worked fine. Took about 90 minutes and the new disk booted to both XP and Linux.

The problem was that I was unable to use the additional space.

I won't detail all of the things I tried before the epiphany.

It's important to remember that laptops from vendors have special partitions for various purposes. I used Partition Magic when I made room for Linux when I first got the Laptop. I also created a "fat32" partition so that I could share files between the two OS's.

While setting this up I used up the primary partitions and created an extended partition for Linux and Swap. It wouldn't let me resize the extended partition.

This is what created the problem stated above. I didn't want to disturb the factory partitions. The main goal was to not have to reinstall windows, just give it more space.

Part of the reason for wanting extra space was to be able to install more than one Linux distro. I was willing to blow away Linux and reinstall. Installing Debian and getting 90% of what I need takes a little over an hour. With the recent release of Lenny and the fact the you can get install disks with your choice of desktop, XFCE, GNOME, and KDE, I wanted to try the XFCE version.

Of course after deleting the extended partition the laptop wouldn't boot anymore. Grub would fail due to the menu.lst file now missing. I had total confidence that the Linux install would find XP and set-up Grub appropriately. It did!

Windows did run CHKDSK when it was first booted due to the new larger space.

Everything is working great. I just have to change the sources to "testing" and do a distribution upgrade.

This turned out to be a great learning experience. The information in this thread was helpful. I wanted to add my lesson of what might happen if the disk you're trying to clone has used up it's primary partitions and also has an extended partition. It adds complication and some additional planning is needed. The beauty is that the original disk was always safe. I could mess up the new drive without fear that I could start over.


Thanks,