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From my experience this is answer is no, but I was hoping to get some more information about this process.

For example, say I install Windows using the full drive but later on I want to make a Linux partition. I always have this worry that after installing Linux some of the Windows files would be lost.

Another way to ask it would be does Linux install allow you to shrink an existing partition to the point of losing files, and if so would it warn you?

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  • Every partition editor I've used refuses to shrink a volume to smaller than the amount of data currently stored on it. Feb 11, 2012 at 18:33

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Files will be inaccessible (unless you use undelete software) when you remove a partition, they are also inaccessible when the partition is severely damaged or shrinked in an incorrect way.

Under normal conditions, shrinking a partition or adding a partition after another just keeps your files.

Another way to ask it would be does Linux install allow you to shrink an existing partition to the point of losing files, and if so would it warn you?

Unless you manually change the partition size (which would make the file references invalid as they are outside the partition boundary) it is not possible to do this with the usual partition shrinking software, you are pretty safe when using them. When in doubt, make a back-up!

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Linux supports reading and writing NTFS and FAT, thus it is able to tell how much space on each windows or other ntfs partition is used.

Under normal circumstances there is nothing to worry about. Even moving partitions around is possible. But of course this depends on the tool you are using. GParted is quite save, and I think parted can only resize partitions if you have resized the filesystem on it beforehand.

Of course always something bad can happen, eg if you are moving a partition and have a power failure the results might be bad. So make a backup of your important files.

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