resizing windows, gentoo partitions

[Tonglebeak]

First of all, here's my partition table layout

/dev/sda1 - Windows XP - ntfs, 150gb
/dev/sda2 - /boot - ext2, 512kb
/dev/sda3 - swap, 512mb
/dev/sda4 - gentoo - ext3, 80gb

I've pretty much accepted the fact that to get windows programs to run flawlessly, you need to use windows. but here's what i want to do:

1) I want to resize my xp partition down to 100gb, and increase my gentoo partition to 100gb
2) Create a FAT32 partition for swapping files between the two os'

Problem: How do I go about doing this? I've heard ext3 partitions can't be resized without losing data, and I know the partition magic (for resizing windows) will likely corrupt the partition table, as it's done that to me last year when I had windows and mandriva running.

[sternklang]

The Linux-NTFS project says their tools will grow or shrink (but not move) ntfs partitions non-destructively. e2fsprogs can do the same for ext2/3. They are included on the GParted LiveCD which is a great replacement for partition magic.

So you can boot off the LiveCD, and resize everything, though be careful where you add a new fat partition so you don't throw off the device numbering.

[Hauser]

There may be some problems doing this. If you use GParted or Qtparted (checkout SystemRescueCd), you should have no problem shrinking your xp paritition. However, it'll be difficult to expand your gentoo partition, because AFAIK you can only resize a partition by moving the end of the partition forward or backward, you can't move the beginning of a partition (since your gentoo partition is the last partition, you probably won't be able to expand it). I would suggest you create another 2 partitions (either with qtparted of fdisk) after you shrink your xp, one for the vfat partition, the other for your gentoo system (you can move some of your gentoo stuff there).
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AMD Athlon XP 2600+; 512M RAM;
nVidia FX5700LE; Hitachi 120Gb
2.6.9-nitro4, reiser4, linux26-headers+nptl

Do I like to compile everything?
Positive definite!