[Move system files away from end of external HDD]

On 20/10/2018 at 03:02, Andavari said:

Cheap/reliable HDD's, just buy a name brand you're already familiar with. As with any HDD as soon as you get it don't put anything on it right away, instead run chkdsk /r on the drive first to check for any possible errors.

Thanks Andavari. Good advice.

[Move system files away from end of external HDD]

Any recommendations for cheap and reliable 1TB ext HDD's ?

[Move system files away from end of external HDD]

Hi, thanks for your replies and my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. The USB external drive is an NTFS formatted Buffalo HD-PCU2 500 GB. (Although the "Properties" tab for some reason says the capacity is only 465 GB).

So, (in theory) I have about 65 GB of free space which I would like to format as Ext4 and use as a Linux partition. However, I cannot shrink the drive and partition it as these NTFS system files are sitting in two blocks at the end of the drive.

I should have also explained that my Windows OS is Vista SP2 (Home Premium). I'm intending to install Linux Mint as a dual boot in another partition on the C: drive.

The easiest thing, as has been said, would be to move the existing files and re-format and partition the drive. But I don't have another 500 GB drive available. Yes, I know I really should invest in more storage, but money's a bit tight at the moment. 

Some time ago I did have the free version of PerfectDisk which probably would have moved these files. My trial expired and I don't want to pay for the full version.

I think I'm resigned to the fact that I will just have to find the cash for another HDD !
 

[Move system files away from end of external HDD]

I want to shrink the drive and create another partition on my external USB HDD but there are some system files sitting on the end there which won't move. And I can't (and probably don't want to) delete them.

These are $UsnJrnl:$J / $Secure:$SII / $ObjId:$O files. Defraggler won't move them with a Boot Time Defrag. Does anyone know how I can move them?

Thanks.