Vista featuring GParted

Ten days ago, I bought a new notebook, HP dv6768se white edition. Yep, it’s kinda big and heavy, but I like it. I like the specs and I like the casing. This notebook is bundled with windows Vista home premium. I never use vista before, so I kinda excited. My friends told me that I will be sorry using vista and will be rush back into using XP. I refuse to agree with him, I said to him my time with XP is enough and it’s time to find new experience. So, I embrace vista.

First day …
I love the Vista look! It took some time for me to be acquainted with all the stuff in it, let alone many other applications that come along with this notebook. My habit with my stuff is making customizations. One of them is making partition for my drive. I need at least two drives, as usual. But then, I realize that the vista cannot do this, and I am puzzled. Why?? I am suddenly frustrated

Second day …
I asked my friends about their experience with vista. Not all of them have difficulties as I encounter. But thank God, deddy did. He told me to use GParted by Linux. What? Oh, it has been a long time ago since my days with Linux. He said that I don’t need to install Linux as my second OS, but only use the bootable disc. I found the live CD iso in the internet and download it. But I am nervous. I don’t want my vista to crash or something because that means I need to install it again. Even though this notebook is bundled with vista, it doesn’t mean that I get the vista pack itself. What I get is the recovery disc, which will repair my crushed vista (if it happens) to the original state, and that include the partition. I don’t want that. What I want is new drive and the system drive is shrunk. Therefore, I am still having doubts in using this gparted thing. But deddy assure me that by his experience, his vista is not crashed and using gparted is easy.
Anyway, one of my friends suggests me to reformat the notebook and use pirated vista or xp (for better cause). But I refuse this idea, because I want to keep my original vista intact. Why? I have my own reason 😀

Third day…
I gather much information in using gparted. One of the info said that it is guarantee that gparted will crush your vista, but don’t worry cause you can install you vista again. Hell yeah?! I don’t have the installer… duh! But again, deddy told me its fine. In addition, agung told me that even if it happens, I still have the recovery disc, so the worst thing that could happen is I have to recover my notebook… that’s it. I have nothing to worry. So, that night, I burn the live CD and boot with this gparted thing. And all the fun begin…

I don’t expect at all that there will be any display setting in using gparted. I was surprised. Nor deddy or the tutorial said anything about setting the display! Why don’t they make a tutorial for the dummies?? What if I really-really don’t have any idea of what I need to do?? Then I tried to follow the instructions. I pick all the default option except for my display resolution. My notebook has 1280 x 800 res, so I use this resolution in gparted setting. But alas! When it tried to launch the GUI, instead of the gui itself the monitor showed prompt screen with error message above it. It said something about fatal error: no display found. What??!! D*mn.. I don’t know what to do… this is prompt screen where I should type something to make it runs… I typed exit, it just show the prompt again. I typed help, logout, bye, anything… but nothing helps me. So… I push the force shutdown. I became more nervous. I tried this step about 3 times without any clue what I should do to fix it. I called deddy and he did not know what I’m talking about, because he runs gparted smoothly and never got that error. I’m by myself. In my fourth attempt, I read all the details. All… then I saw an instruction about “if X-Windows fail to run…” and I read that carefully and wrote down the step that I need to do. It said that I should not go with the default. I should say no when the application attempt to auto detect my hardware and display setting. So I repeat the step (of course, with force shutdown at the beginning of each step!) and follow the instruction again. And… I don’t get the error anymore. But wait… the prompt screen still appear instead of gui… what?? I read, and now the error message said “cannot write in framebuffer. You should define all…blablabla” can’t remember the rest . I took a deep breath and try to remember, what the hell is framebuffer??? After useless effort, I still can’t remember what framebuffer means in this context, but I remember there was one step that mention about buffer and because it was not one of the step that I need to adjust (according to the instruction about failed display) I just pick the default answer which is no. Than… once again I repeat the step and boot again with gparted CD. This time, I choose yes in “write to framebuffer” step. I wait… and voila!! There is the GUI… NICE!!!

I know this interface, because this interface is all the tutorial mention. So I follow the step in tutorial in shrinking and growing the drives. But because im not sure about how small I should shrink the system part, I grow and shrink it several times. After I am sure of my settings, I press apply, and gparted start to resize my drives. I wait… but then I read the number of step that need to be completed. 0 of 9 steps. Why there’s so much step? I check it again and I saw… that because of my repetition in resizing the system drive, gparted take it as one step each, and I change my mind 9 times!! D*mn!!! This will take a very long time!! My harddisk will be shrunk and grew several times. I don’t want it to happen, and I decided to cancel the operation. The risk is that my boot drive can be undetected. I eject the gparted cd, and boot from my HD. Thanks God… my vista is still up and running, and my drive was not ruined. Then… for the last time, I boot again from gparted and set the display setting correctly, and pick the precise size for each of my drives, and the press apply button. 0 of 2 steps. I am happy, gparted is doing it job, and I wait. After it finished, I press reboot, eject the CD, and let the vista took control. I hope my vista still has full control. And it did. The round vista logo appears… and there goes my adventure in making drive partition in vista.

Ps #1 : I like using vista, cause I don’t use it for programming purpose. Indeed, some of my favorite applications cannot be installed here, but I don’t mind. I am optimist that I will find the replacement 😀

PS #2 : please skip the part of laughing me because of my stupidity (considering I have an IT Background). Just laugh at my back okay… 🙂