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Is there any partition manager for Windows that can manage (resize, move, etc.) ext4 partitions?

Caveats:

  • Resize must be smart when resizing from the beginning of the partition.

    Many partition managers screw this up (I've noticed Acronis Disk Director 10 being an exception), and move the entire partition's data when you resize from the beginning, translating into enormous amounts of time wasted in many cases.

  • It must also be able to browse (copy/delete) files on partitions too.

I am specifically NOT asking for:

  • Offline-only solutions
  • Linux-based solutions

I think Acronis Disk Director 10 fit all of these solutions except that it doesn't have ext4 support. Something similar with ext4 support is just what I need.

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  • As of this writing apparently Paragon Partition Manager 11 Free performs a copy of all data when extending an NTFS partition from the front, while EaseUS and Minitools seem to only copy metadata (which is a lot faster).
    – user541686
    Commented Jan 14, 2013 at 1:49
  • Warning: Minitool bundles Avast "anti"virus. Wasted way too much time trying to get rid of that malware.
    – unhammer
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 9:47

3 Answers 3

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+100

Paragon Partition Manager 11 Free Edition is Windows-based, supports ext4 and is very easy to use .

Although claiming a smart resize/move wizard, I have no idea how smart it is on moving ext4 from its beginning, but being one of the best partition managers around it is certainly worth a try.

Another one that you could try is MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition 6.0, boasting two million users world-wide.

Please note that when resizing partitions, nobody can guarantee the results. The world's best products are always capable of destroying the disk. I always counsel taking an image of a disk before doing any partition work (using a 3rd-party product - use the problematic Windows Backup only if you have to).

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  • 1
    Looking at their website, it seems like by "smart" they mean "secure", not "fast": Paragon Smart Partition™ technology to securely perform partitioning operations. :\
    – user541686
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 8:00
  • I have read this rather as "smart and secure", but I might be wrong.
    – harrymc
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 9:06
  • Paragon indeed seems to be much more powerful than other partition managers I've seen (Partition Magic, Acronis, Partition Wizard, etc.), but when resizing a 10-GiB ext4 partition from the beginning by a couple of megabytes, it still takes ~7 minutes to "Copy data by cluster..." (as the progress message says). The 7 minutes isn't a killer here, but if it does the same thing with my bigger, NTFS partitions (e.g. 200-GiB data partition) then it definitely will be. I'll try out NTFS soon and see how it goes -- I don't particularly care if it's only ext4 that's slow.
    – user541686
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 17:42
  • Oh, also: it doesn't seem like it's capable of browsing ext4 partitions either, but if all else is well then I could probably live with that.
    – user541686
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 17:46
  • Ugh, it still does a cluster-by-cluster copy for NTFS. This simply isn't going to scale. :(
    – user541686
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 18:25
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I am not too sure about editing it in Windows, but I would recommend using GParted's LiveCD/USB. Then you can just pop it in, edit what you need, then return without installing anything on your system.

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  • I've had so many corruptions caused by Linux tools working on my partitions (even NTFS-3g, believe it or not) that I'm not looking for any Linux-based tools anymore, sorry. :(
    – user541686
    Commented May 20, 2011 at 23:45
  • 6
    Even when NTFS support in Linux was "Highly experimental", I had no issues with Linux on a system with NTFS. If you are reluctant to let Linux touch your NTFS partitions, you can resize those in the Windows Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc), then resize linux partitions with GParted
    – TuxRug
    Commented May 21, 2011 at 1:03
  • I have run full Linux systems on NTFS, and it causes no issues on my end. It really should not be doing anything to it if your not running a full system off it. I do not recommend using NTFS for any Linux stuff at all though.
    – Simon Sheehan
    Commented May 21, 2011 at 1:05
  • @TuxRug: I'm probably just scared, but I simply don't want Linux tools to touch anything related to my other partitions -- hence why I said Windows in the question. (That includes the partition table and stuff, so using GParted for ext4 won't work.)
    – user541686
    Commented May 21, 2011 at 2:54
  • The important thing is to back up your data. I've never had gparted or ntfs3g mess up an NTFS partition. If you're really paranoid, make an image of your entire disk using dd.
    – Mechanical snail
    Commented Aug 26, 2011 at 5:17
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Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 can resize/move Ext2, Ext3, Ext4 partition without damaging existing data.

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