Every now and then a user needs to edit the partitions on their hard drive. This could be to make room for a new operating system or to expand the 130GB partition that Microsoft Windows XP (Pre SP1) forced them to setup. Normally at that point users have two options for repartitioning their hard drives. These options are to format and reinstall their existing operating system with new drive partitions or pay the $69.95 for a copy of Norton Partition magic to resize the existing partitions on the drive. Now thanks to open source and Linux we are presented with a much nicer, and cheaper, solution.

Anyone who has worked on computers has inevitably heard the sound of a hard drive “clunking”. Those who have heard it know that it is the undeniable sound of the hard drive getting ready to die. More often then not this sound comes just after the point in the hard drives lifetime where Windows stops letting you read and write data to the drive. At this point your heart starts to pound and you rack your brain for the answer to the only question that matters at this point.. When did I last backup my data? Not to worry though, there is most likely a way to recover at least some of your data from the hard drive using Linux’s dd command.