[ale] vmware decreasing hard disk size

[Michael Trausch]

Perhaps a little bit about the boot process of a typical x86 family
system would be in order here.

When an x86-based computer boots up, it's BIOS runs through a series
of tests to ensure that things like the processor and memory is
working.  It then attempts to boot up; it does this by looking through
all boot devices in order, reading the first sector on the drive.  If
it ends in the bytes 0x55 / 0xAA (or maybe the other way around, I
can't remember), then it loads the sector into memory and jumps to it.
 That sector is responsible for the first stage of the boot process.
In the case of a hard disk drive, the first sector is actually the
master boot record, which will then find the active partition and boot
from it, if it has a standard program.  Of course, any program can be
installed in the MBR or boot sector of a volume, and so as is usually
the case in places where software is involved... well, anything can
go.  :-)



On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 18:56, Narahari 'n' Savitha <savithari at gmail.com> wrote:
> Scott:
>
> I resized using gparted and not the vmware utility to do so.  You got a
> point.  I should do so.
>
> David:
> I did not install a boot loader on the disk.  I thougt if the only os is
> Linux a boot loader is not needed.
> Can you please provide a bit clarification so I can do so ?
>
> -Narahari
>
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 1:16 PM, David Tomaschik <david at systemoverlord.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Did you install a bootloader on the disk before expecting to be able
>> to boot from it?
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Narahari 'n' Savitha
>> <savithari at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Friends:
>> >
>> > I have a working Ubuntu 64 bit inside Guest in a Windoze7 host env.
>> >
>> > It was originally at 40gb all working fine.
>> >
>> > I have since then resized it to 18gb (dont need 40gb) and then I created
>> > another disk of 20 gb.
>> >
>> > I then used gparted and copied the parition from the 18gb to this new
>> > disk.
>> >
>> > I marked the new disk as bootable with the flags options of gparted. I
>> > removed the 18gb drive.
>> >
>> > When I connected the new drive by itself and restarted the machine, I am
>> > seeing blank screen.
>> >
>> > Any ideas would help.
>> >
>> > -Narahari
>> >
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>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Tomaschik, RHCE, LPIC-1
>> System Administrator/Open Source Advocate
>> OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B
>> http://systemoverlord.com
>> david at systemoverlord.com
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>
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