> OK. This probably means my project to install Windows on this hard
> disk is doomed. How is resize supposed to behave when you ask it to
> move the start of a partition? Because it seems to me as though it
> just ignored me.
I checked it and also went through the code.  It seems as if that's the
current behaviour.  My answer may seem incompetent to you, and you might
ask, "how can he say he is maintaining this program with enough
responsibility, and at the same time not know how an elementary
operation of the program behaves?".  But this is the only way I can
maintain GNU Parted.  Half a year ago I became the sucessor of the
previous maintainer and author of GNU Parted and it is hardly possible
to read through the whole code in one bunch.  This is even more true
because I concentrate on issue that are dangerous, and therefore have to
postpone "funny" (that's irony) things like that.
 =20
  It follows that the good news for this issue is that I will change the
current behaviour into something more usable.  And while speaking of
usability, Parted had and despite my ongoing efforts still has quite
some problems in this regard.  For example, when some locations you give
it won't fit, it just says:

  "Unable to satisfy all constraints."

instead of offering an alternative or saying what location caused
problems.  But I'm drifting away.

[ed.: this has been fixed for 1.7]

  As a closing note, I must say I can hardly believe that the resize
command is the cause for the destruction you experienced.  I can't offer
an alternative explanation, though.