Using Linux to resize a Microsoft Windows partition

I used to have the disk of my work PC partitioned into two drives: a C-drive for "code" and a D-drive for "data". Yeah, I am that [b|s]ad.

Batman's now imposed "Desktop Authority" on those in IT. That has a number of impacts: 1) logging on to the network now takes two minutes; 2) we're being watched; 3) the D-drive isn't as easy as a double-click to access. Accessing the D-drive isn't difficult. It's just not as easy as it should be.

My computer had problems before Batman forced "Desktop Authority" upon us. I installed XP on that machine in March 2004. Three years ago? That's probably some kind of record. The machine had problems and one of those problems was the size of my partitions wasn't right. I had a C-drive that I struggled to keep even 1Gb of space free and a D-drive with tumbleweeds. I needed to take some of the space I'd given to my D-drive and add it to my C-drive.

The problem was none of my Windows tools would allow me to change the way I split the disk. It wouldn't resize the partitions during a reboot and (prompted by the interweb) looking for faults on my disk didn't help. Maybe it was the fact I had so little space left on my C-drive, but more likely it was the fact I hadn't re-installed XP in three years ... think not changing the oil in your car for that long.

I need to change the partition sizes on my disk, but all I was getting was errors. Thankfully, there was a pointer to an alternative. I already had a Knoppix boot CD and everything important on my D-drive was backed-up, so I had nothing to lose. A reboot, select qtparted from the System menu (rather than, as suggested, the terminal), and resizing the partitions was as easy as dragging and dropping.

Okay, Linux had nothing to do with it. I just needed a boot disk with a tool for playing with partitions. I could've used MS-DOS (and, by God, would that have booted fast).