shrinking an NTFS partition

[MikeBAM]

I'd like to make a boot CD to automate the task of shrinking an NTFS partition. I am having trouble finding any software to do this. Can anyone help?


(BTW doesn't matter how extreme. Could be in DOS, Linux, Windows, BartPE, ERD Commander, Your favorite all in one boot disk, whatever... i don't care.) Just has to be automated.

[patio]

Why would you want this dangerous of a task automated ? ?

[MikeBAM]

because i need to do it to many computers on a regular basis!

(the new partition is going to hold a ghost image of the first partition)

[patio]

So you are regularly ghosting machines and shrinking partitions to accomodate the image file ? ?

They pay you for this ? ?

[MikeBAM]

Yes!
It's actually to save money. Other wise we have to drive across town to have a laptop re-imaged.
It's a joke

[Allan]

I think what patio's asking is why the partition has to be made smaller to copy the image.

[MikeBAM]

The image is unique to the machine, the machine only has 1 partition and lots of free space. Why not take advantage of this space and make a small (about 7GB) partition?

[Allan]

For what purpose? While I'm an advocate of multiple partitions, what's the difference if the systems have one or two partitions - especially if the second one is only 7Gb? If I were you I'd find something else to worry about

[MikeBAM]

In my 2nd post you can see I said the partition is going to hold the image for the 1st partition.

[patio]

Well since all HDD's eventually fail i'd suggest burning the images to DVD instead of screwin around with partitions...

[Quantos]

Pure bunk.

Automating this task, if necessary, would open a whole other can of worms.

Do your job manually.  People like you give the rest of us a bad name.  What you are looking for will cause WAY more failures and issues than it would fix.

[MikeBAM]

WHATEVER..... Well it looks like that's what i'm going to do anyway...
I'll just have to use 2 different disks

(Hard drive failure is not a concern in this organization)

[Allan]

Pure bunk.

Automating this task, if necessary, would open a whole other can of worms.

Do your job manually.  People like you give the rest of us a bad name.  What you are looking for will cause WAY more failures and issues than it would fix.

What's pure bunk? What he wants to do makes perfect sense, just not the way he wants to do it. I do agree with patio that having the image(s) off disc makes more sense, but there's no reason not to also keep them on a separate partition.

[Quantos]

I think you missed the point of what I was saying Allan, I was not calling what patio suggested bunk.

I'm referring to wanting to automate a partition shrink process.  That can lead to far more problems than it will solve.