Linux – How to realocate space from the Swap partition to the ext4 ‘normal’ partition in Ubuntu

I thought I used to do this with system-config-lvm GUI tool in CentOS, but it's not working for me today. So I had to go old school. As always, this might destroy your data, so MAKE A BACKUP!! Thanks to experts across the internet for providing these hints. Unfortunately my notes do not include attribution details. Note I performed all of these changes while the system was live.

1. Enlarge the disk using fdisk
   1. fdisk -l (to see the partition layout, typically we're dealing with /dev/sda2)
   2. fdisk /dev/sda
   3. d (delete a partition)
   4. 2 (if the part we want to grow is /dev/sda2; note this does not delete any data on disk)
   5. n (create a new partition)
   6. p (primary partition)
   7. 2
   8. <return> (default starting block, typically 14 since swap is first)
   9. <return> (default ending block, full size of the partition)
   10. make sure partition type is 8e for Linux LVM
       1. t
       2. 8e
   11. w (write changes to disk)
2. reboot to get new partition table
3. pvresize /dev/sda2
4. pvscan should show new larger size
5. lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/vg_centos6/lv_root (-L +10G to add 10GB is another option)
6. resize2fs /dev/vg_centos6/lv_root
7. df should show new free space

Are you doing this from your Linux OS or from a Live CD? Typically gparted does not let you do major changes to partitions until they are unmounted.

If this is the issue, a Live CD usage should let you resize the extended partition, move the ntfs one and then resize the ext4 one.