Re: [PLUG] Story and warning about wubi and ubuntu

[Art Alexion <art.alexion@gmail.com>]

On Sunday 10 January 2010 12:05:19 James Barrett wrote:
> Yes, but compared to the potential of seriously damaging or destroying
> an existing partition by shrinking it, this is an extremely safe
> solution.  Also, having a disk image file adds the benefit of being
> able to say, "If you find that Ubuntu does not meet your needs, then
> just go to "add/remove programs" and remove it to regain your disk
> space!" ... you wouldn't be able to do that very easily if there was a
> new partition, and again adds the potential of data loss.
> 
> Using a disk image is simply a better solution for Wubi's purpose, as
> well as for its targeted audience.
> 

I see your point, but from my perspective, I have shrunken and expanded a lot 
of NTFS partitions, and haven't lost any data so far.  

This is our standard desktop build.  We install or configure XP.  Customize 
for that user/department.  Shrink the partition with Gparted Live.  Add and 
ext2 image that windows can't see.  Use a Clonezilla boot disk to clone the 
windows partition to the ext2 partition.  That way, when the user screws up 
the system, we just restore from the clone.  I have done this many times 
without data loss problems.  Usually, the only problems are file fragmentation 
on a system in use for some time, preventing gparted from shrinking the 
partition.  Never any data loss, though.  I hope saying this doesn't jinx me. 
;-)

-- 
Art Alexion

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