partman doesn't provide ntfsresize status details

[ion]

I heard that hoary was supposed to have NTFS resizing in the installer.
I install and try to resize the existing ntfs partition from 80GB down to 40GB
by using "40 GB" and "50%" as size description.
The installer asks if it should resize it and that it takes time.
I press yes, no hd activity, and two seconds later, it's back in the manager
with no size change.

System: HP Pavilion zd8048

Also, the system to let you check what keyboard layout it is by pressing the
keys is a neat idea, but it'd be nice to acctually see what it selects, and
preferably OK it too...

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I heard that hoary was supposed to have NTFS resizing in the installer.
> I install and try to resize the existing ntfs partition from 80GB down to 40GB
> by using "40 GB" and "50%" as size description.
> The installer asks if it should resize it and that it takes time.
> I press yes, no hd activity, and two seconds later, it's back in the manager
> with no size change.

Could you attach /var/log/partman (or /var/log/installer/partman if you've
finished the installation) to this bug, please?

> Also, the system to let you check what keyboard layout it is by pressing the
> keys is a neat idea, but it'd be nice to acctually see what it selects, and
> preferably OK it too...

In general, please file separate bugs for separate problems; but Matthias has
fixed this one now.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

I've just had an IRC report from fantasai that she's run into the same issue
while installing on a box with windows pre-installed. She's setting up a
Bugzilla account here.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

Could this be a dupe of bug 14620?

[fantasai (fantasai)]

No, the ntfs partition is not corrupted afaict.

On my computer, the partition resizer did try to resize the partition --
it certainly took a long time to do /something/. But the change in size
never showed up in the partition table.

I'd attach the logfile if I knew how. It's too long to type out, but I
don't know how to get it off the computer's RAM.

[fantasai (fantasai)]

Oh, I forgot to mention --
  IBM ThinkPad T23
  10.1 GB hard drive, 10GB ntfs partition
  Windows 2000 on partition; not in hibernation mode

[Jonas Jørgensen (jonasj)]

I had this same problem, and managed to fix it. I tried to resize an NTFS
partition, but it just went back to the manager and the partition kept its old size.

Running ntfsresize from the console told me that the drive had errors and that I
should run CHKDSK /F from Windows. After I did that, I booted from the install
cd again, and resizing worked!

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

So you can run ntfsresize from the console and check error output? That could be
release-noted, at least. I suspect "the new installer" will pick this error
information up and display it, though.

[Jeff Evans (jwevans1)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I had this same problem, and managed to fix it. I tried to resize an NTFS
> partition, but it just went back to the manager and the partition kept its old
size.
>
> Running ntfsresize from the console told me that the drive had errors and that I
> should run CHKDSK /F from Windows. After I did that, I booted from the install
> cd again, and resizing worked!

I had the same problem but didn't know to even run ntfsresize. Tried to resize
ntfs partition, took a while, did nothing. It took me a long time to figure out
it was because the ntfs partition had bad blocks. It would be nice if the
Ubuntu installer reported this error instead of just returning to the partition
table with no changes made and no explanation.
.

[Matthew Garrett (mjg59)]

*** Bug 19620 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Szabolcs Szakacsits (szaka)]

Yes, Partman indeed silences all ntfsresize diagnostic messages. Ntfsresize has
a well defined and stable event reporting interface for integration, which other
partitioner front-ends also use. As far as I'm aware, the most userfriendly and
sophisticated is QTParted from this point of view.

When Debian integrated ntfsresize I comment that this spartian interface will
cause lots of usability and supportability problems:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/09/msg02122.html

The interoperability issues were worked out years ago on the ntfsresize side but
on the front-end side developers need to add a couple of lines more code.

So yes, if users currently would like to know why NTFS resizing is refused,
without modification to the NTFS partition, then they must run the ntfsresize
-fi <partition> command from a console. Usage of the latest ntfsresize (version
1.11.2) is strongly recomended because it has a lot of extra safety, diagnostic
check and better explanations which should help users hugely how they could
resolve problems to safely go on.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

*** Bug 17540 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

*** Bug 24416 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Martin Bergner (martin-bergner)]

Is this still a problem with dapper?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Yes.

[jsn (jakobskipper)]

I just installed 6.06 and I got no progress bar while resizing - I almost thought that the process was stalled. (waiting 20-30 min.) With a maxtor maxline III 250 gb SATA

[Julian Yap (julian-yap)]

I encountered this issue when running Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 Beta install.

There is no progress indication that the resize of the NTFS partition is in progress. The graffic just hangs at 0%. I had to fire up a terminal to see that the ntfsresize process was running... I'm thinking this could potentially hose someone's system if they restarted their PC in the middle of this process.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for posting this bug.

Does this occur in Lucid?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Please do not repeatedly ask reporters to reconfirm this bug. It hasn't been fixed and should stay open.