On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 5:28 AM, gregrwm <tclug1 at whitleymott.net> wrote: > > which installers or others would you certify as reliable for shrinking ntfs? > is it best to use winders defrag first? That thread got a bit off-topic, didn't it? Really, it's not a matter of which installer is reliable for shrinking ntfs, but which tool. I have always found that gparted has been intuitive and has worked wonderfully. It is just a GUI for parted, but parted is less than intuitive for a lot of tasks. I can tell you that gparted is included on any Ubuntu or Linux Mint live CD I have used. When you ask about Windows defrag, that's a good question. The thing I find it asks of me most often is to reboot and run Windows Scandisk. So do that first, and you won't have to do those extra couple reboots. Despite the reliability, they still recommend backing up any important data when performing a task that fiddles with partitions, but thankfully I have never needed my backup after that. - Justin