Ubuntu :: Cloning Root Drive From Large To Small Partition?

i am running ubuntu 10.10 and windows7 on a asus eee 1015. currently i have two partitions: 80GB for windows (NTFS) and 160Gb for Ubuntu (ext4).

I want to:

- shrink the windows partition (easy, no worries);

- Shrink the ubuntu partition

- join the space thus created in a third partition that i can use for storage, media etc accessible by both windows and ubuntu

The problem:

- i could not manage to get gparted live to run off USB stick (i get the unable to find medium.... error)

- even if i would get gparted to work and i succeed in shrinking the ubuntu partition as well, the two spaces reclaimed will be divided by the ubuntu partition, which means they cannot be joined in a third partition.

so here is what i want to do:

- shrink windows and create a new partition;

- format this new partition as ext4;

- somehow "clone" the data on my current ubuntu root into the new partition;

- format the current root as NTFS and use it as the storage partition

i am aware this may mean i would have to re-set grub etc but would the cloning of the partition be possible? that i would need to clone data from a 160G partition into a 40G partition.

BY THE WAY - forgot to mention that i have tried to load clonezilla off an USB drive and i get the same error: "unable to find medium..."