Need help with GParted

As I was installing Ubuntu, I somehow ended up with 15 GB of unallocated space on the drive. I'm running dangerously low on disk space on my Vista partition (5 GB remaining) so I have decided to allocate this space to that. I tried using Vista's Disk Management tool, only to learn that you can't extend a "system" partition. My next thought was to pop in the Ubuntu Live CD I made and go from there. The only problem? It won't let me move or resize the unallocated space or my Vista partition either. I've included a screenshot in case that might help. I'm just so lost...


By rickhamilton620 at 2008-11-03

EDIT: just relaunched the program and got this after it started-must not have noticed it before:
By rickhamilton620 at 2008-11-03

Checked all drives-none mounted except for CD Rom

 

You can only have up to 4 Primary partitions in a Hard drive. You're going to have to delete a partition. Try unmounting sda4 and see if it works.

 

First of all, he has 4 primary partitions, sda1, 2, 3 &4.
4 being only an extended partition (the number of logical partitions within doesn't matter).

Second, did you get the warning message when you used GParted while Ubuntu was loaded or when using the Live-CD?
I think (notice; think) you can use the unallocated space to first increase swap (2.01 + 17.24) and then shrink swap again (19.25 - 2.01) so that the unallocated space is left of the swap partition instead of on the right side now.
Then you should shrink the entire extended partition so that the unallocated space comes between sda3 and the extended partition.
Then you should be able to increase sda3 with the unallocated space.

Booboo12, I think this will work but can someone else please confirm?
Cheers.

 

No harm trying..

 

This was with the live CD.

 

If it were me, I'd delete the entire extended partition with GParted LiveCD, NOT the Ubuntu installer CD. Use Vista partitioner to expand the Vista partition if you desire, and try installing Ubuntu again.
Well, if it were me I'd also want to know what those two partitions in front of Vista were. 2 GB for a recovery partition (and only half of it being used) seems too small. If you've made your recovery DVD's and you're fairly sure they're good, delete the recovery partition and see if you can use the Vista partitioner to make use of that space.
Another option is to run your recovery DVD's. The recovery DVD's got rid of the extra partitions on my Acer. When they were done, I had one Vista partition. This made things much simpler. However, I don't know if that's the way other recovery discs work!

I think your error message is because you're using the Ubuntu partitioner. Can't stress strongly enuf - download GParted and make a CD! It's much more reliable than the partitioner on the Ubuntu CD.

 

On a Dell, there are two small partitions on the drive-The first one there is the "Dell Diagnostics" partition (runs programs like a memory and hard disk health checker that help you and Dell tech's figure out what's wrong with the system) The second one is the Dell Restore partition. I don't really need it as Dell provides OS and Driver disks and I also created a Complete PC backup long ago, so the partition no longer functions

So I could get rid of both, I'll try everyone's suggestions when I get out of class. I thought I was using GParted, what's the difference between the GParted that comes with Ubuntu Live CD and the standalone GParted Live Disk?

Thanks for all the responses so far, keep em coming !

 

Well, you're right. The partitioner on the Ubuntu CD is GParted. But it's an abbreviated version, and I keep reading about people who have problems with it because it reports that one of the partitions is mounted. You can't tweak on a partition that's mounted.
The GParted LiveCD (available nowadays as a stand-alone or combined with Clonezilla) runs from the CD that you create from the download just like when you make an Ubuntu LiveCD. But it doesn't mount any partitions. I've read enough posts about problems with the Ubuntu LiveCD and success with the stand-alone GParted LiveCD that I don't even question it any more. Just suggest people do it. Besides, the GPLCD is a handy tool to have around if you're trying to help other people or whatever. It's not fool-proof. When I tried to shrink a Vista partition the partition became unbootable. But for creating/moving/deleting empty partitions it's a great tool.
One odd trick I found out with GParted. Sometimes you'll click on a partition on the map and nothing happens. If you run into that, right-click on the text description of the partition on the lower half of the page. That'll bring up a context menu and you can proceed from there.
If Vista partitioning tool is capable of removing those partitions and sliding Vista to the left I'd probably use it. Then use GParted for creating a new Linux partition.

 

+1 for gparted LiveCD. Download and burn that onto a CD. It's one of my most used utilites.

If you already have the recovery discs, then you can safely delete the two partitions. If you're going dual boot, you can just put the Linux stuff (/, swap, /home) into a logical partition and put Windows into a Primary. This allows you to have 2 other partitions slot free, if you want. The only drawback I see to this is inconvenience if you want to change the size of, say, your /home drive.

 

booboo -
You mentioned in the first post that Vista wouldn't let you extend a system partition. Yo may not be able to get Vista to swallow up those little partitions even if you remove them.
I have a suggestion for you that may or may not work. It worked for another guy I know who did this with his Acer laptop. However, it's sort of like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane if you know what I mean.

**** IF **** you're reasonably confident that your recovery discs were burned correctly and will reinstall the Vista OS, you could wipe everything on the drive with GParted. Delete all partitions so that the entire drive shows as "unallocated". Then select a partition for Vista at the "front" - the left side of the GParted partition map - and set it up as ntfs file system. Pop in your recovery discs.
If your recovery discs work like this other guy's did, the recovery discs will recognize the ntfs partition and install Vista only to that area, not the entire drive. I'm guessing that the recovery partition would not install. I imagine the Dell Diagnostics partition would probably reinstall. Even so, you'd have Vista and one other partition safely installed to the part of the drive you chose.

Next step would be to pop Gparted LiveCD back in and create an extended partition out of the free space, and install Ubuntu. Whether you decide to just let Ubuntu install automatically or get creative with /home partitions and such is up to you.

I can't guarantee that this will work. But I think it would. It all depends on whether your recovery discs are good or not. As long as they are, the worst outcome would be that you have Vista again, just like before your first Ubuntu experiment.

 

booboo12's going to have to go Manual either way. Using the automatic install method will make Ubuntu install on the whole harddrive. Even over the Vista one.

 

I think we're probably talking about the same thing, just getting hung up on what we would call "automatic" install vs. taking manual control. I've installed Ubuntu several times to a drive with another OS already there by telling it to "install to the free space". Maybe that's considered manual by some.

When I use the term "manual install" I mean getting right in there and telling the installer I want / mounted right here on this partition, and swap mounted on this partition, and /home mounted over here on this partition.

When I've pointed Ubuntu towards the free space then went to get a cup of coffee while it did its thing, to me that's automatic install.

 

Sorry I've not responded as much as I hoped. I've been really busy with school and work, I've haven't had time to try your suggestions, but trust me, I will try them next week.

 

Sure. Give them a try and tell us how they go.

 

+1 for GParted LiveCD. There is no substitute.

 

Ok I'm back!

I burned the Live CD and everything worked. I ditched the Dell Diagnostics and Recovery Partitions, and, after some fiddling, was able to move the "unallocated space" to a position where I could then expand my Windows partition.

I thought that everything went smoothly, until I tried booting into Windows again. Then, everytime I selected Windows Vista from GRUB, the system kept restarting. I popped in the Vista disk, expecting to have to fix the MBR through the command prompt, but as soon as I clicked "Repair My Computer" to get to the prompt, Vista detected what was wrong and fixed it on the spot! Very impressed.

I just wanna say thanks to everyone who posted, even when I couldn't try out your suggestions right away.

Thanks again,
Ricky

 

Did you fix your Vista install with the Dell Recovery discs, or did you have a genuine Vista install disc?

If you used GParted to delete the two dinky partitions to the left, then expanded the Vista partition to cover the unallocated area, I'm not surprised that Vista refused to boot! I am surprised (but glad) that fixing it was relatively painless. Bet you were freaking out just a little bit right about then, eh?

Did the Vista fix make Ubuntu unbootable? I'm thinking the MBR might have been re-written by Vista when it fixed itself. Do you still get the GRUB boot screen? Do you want to post a new screenshot of your existing partitions?

 

The Dell disk is pretty much a stock Vista DVD with a Dell label on it so no issues there.

LOL, yes! I do admit that-It took me little bit to remember what makes Windows boot and whether it could be a MBR issue. Then I thought I lost the Vista disk. Luckily, I found it.

Surprisingly no, that was my first thought, but when I restarted the computer, GRUB showed up and all works well. I'll have to switch to Ubuntu to put up the screenie but sure.

 

Glad you got it worked out! I know how this process goes...I've had a few partitioning nightmares. Like Telkwa said, didn't Vista overwrite the MBR?

Edit: I see it didn't. That's good.

 

Good news. Another happy dual boot camper! HOorah!

 

Screenshot of new partitioning layout: (while this is within Ubuntu, I used GParted Live to do it)


By rickhamilton620 at 2008-11-10

There's still a bit of unallocated space, but it's tiny so I'm not too concerned

 

If it were me, I'd try to milk the best I can out of the unallocated space and move it into the /.. Then again, it's probably just be being hyper OCD about these things.

I'm wondering why you didn't put your /home into a different partition?

 

, yeah I was thinking about it...it's small so I won't sweat it (for now )

Sorry for sounding n00bish but is that like the pictures, documents, etc. folders?

 

Hehehe.. Don't worry about that. Everyone had to start as a n00b.

Yeah. /home is where all your personal stuff goes. Like if you have three users, Apple, Boy, and Carrot, the directories would be /home/Apple, /home/Boy, and /home/Carrot, respectively.

The benefit of having /home as a seperate partition would be that if something goes wrong with your OS (like a blotched up update or accidental deletion of a critical system file in /), you can just install the OS, in your case, Ubuntu, and leave the /home partition, ie, your personal stuff alone. So you don't have to back up and the copy them back into the fresh OS.

And all your settings, themes, etc will just automatically load up again.

 

After all the Vista fixing, I'm a bit dumbfounded that Ubuntu showed up and worked. Thought for sure the MBR would get overwritten and you'd have to repair GRUB or reinstall Ubuntu.
The picture I have in my head is that Vista saw the unallocated space in the "front" of the drive, and moved itself over to fill that area in, but did not see a problem with the MBR so didn't try to repair that.
As often as I diss Microsoft, have to give credit where it's due - I'm impressed that Vista exhibited such intelligent self-healing behavior.

On the one hand, I'm just glad it's working. On the other hand, that 7 MB of unallocated would drive me nuts. If I was you I'd probly leave it alone for now too. Don't know how long that would last

Regarding home - You have to delve into Linux a bit before you start to appreciate some of the very thoughtful features. Whether you partition /home separately or not, Linux is structured so that all of your personal data goes into /home. Pictures, documents, music, video - all of it by default goes to /home. I really like that.

I've included a few links to directions for creating a /home partition after Ubuntu's been installed. I just googled "ubuntu create /home after installation"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=135670
http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/01/29/move-home-to-its-own-partition/

Those directions look a little scary! For instance, bored2k's directions are really short, but the blog goes on and on. There are probly better guides out there.

I'd be inclined to just wipe Ubuntu entirely, then use GParted to reclaim that 7MB, then follow some online directions for creating the partitions, then mount them during reinstallation.

Or just live with what you've got

EDIT: If I were to follow anyone's directions for building a /home partition after installation, it'd be aysiu's
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome

I would think that a GParted LiveCD would be safer than an Ubuntu LiveCD, but that's just me. Follow his directions carefully for the terminal entries. Be very sure that you know which partition you created for /home, and use that partition in the commands. In your case, GParted would probably create a new partition labeled as sda7.

aysiu has lots of good info on his website...

 

hahahaha! Telkwa! Just leave the poor fellow and his computer in peace... He's probably pretty happy that he's even got it to boot. The OCD can come later...... Maybe in a week.

 

LOL

I've been in that spot a time or two. Thankful the darn thing is working, but unable to ignore the rough edges. Was able to ignore it for - oh, about a week - before I had to go back and screw around with it some more...

 

I know.. It's just... addicitive!