How to resize extended partition

ext4gpartedntfsresizepartitioning

I have primary partition with Windows XP on it.
Also I have extended partition divided into 3 logical partitions:
– Drive D: for Windows
– Ext4 Linux System
– Swap

Now, Linux is my main system, and I'd like to have Ext4 partition the largest, so I want to make windows partitions smaller, and ext4 larger.

Here is my structure:

Model: ATA ST3320613AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320073MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start     End       Size      Type      File system     Flags
 1      0.03MB    104856MB  104856MB  primary   ntfs            boot
 2      104856MB  320073MB  215217MB  extended                  lba
 5      104856MB  209712MB  104856MB  logical   ntfs
 6      209712MB  318014MB  108302MB  logical   ext4
 7      318014MB  320073MB  2058MB    logical   linux-swap(v1)

If I free some space (for example 50Gb) from sda1 (primary ntfs), I will have 50Gb free, but gparted doesn't allow to resize sda2 partition. So I can't give this 50Gb to other partition.

I ask for a piece of advice – how to part my HD. I need to take 50Gb from both of windows partitions, and these 100Gb give to ext4 partition.

Best Answer

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.

Related Solutions

Windows – Partition scheme and size for dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 with separate partitions for data and /home

your partition table seems to me to be almost correct, but I would think about an LVM (it could seems tricky, but I assure you that it will worth the hassle of understanding and using it).

The main reason is: (personal free-thinking :D) "I think that 20 GB are really a lot for a / partition (if you're not planning to put a public web server or something that could fill up fast your hard drive), and that 25 GB for home are really a few; but what can I do if someday I'll run out of disk space in the root partition?". And here is where LVM comes in handy: you can take some MB/GB from your /home or from your unused partition and add'em to your root.

Also, I would split / (root) from /boot: the reason is that you can use an ext2 for your /boot and ext4 for your / (root). ReiserFS it's wonderful, and it's very fast and reliable with a great number of little files (and that's journaled too). Concerning the NTFS data partition, I would suggest you to mount it in /media/data, so to be easy reacheable from inside Ubuntu.

I hope to see what you will choose in the end: and I wish you best luck for your brave project of dual-booting Ubuntu Karmic and Win7 with such an eclectic partition table!

Regards

Linux – Move unallocated space into extended partition to expand logical volume

I just solved it, and I'll post the answer here in case someone else faces a similar problem.

I was unable to resize the partition because my swap space was still in use, so I found out I could disable it using swapoff -a.

After doing this, GParted allowed me to merge the unallocated space with the fedora logical partition. I then right clicked on the logical partition and selected the Check option.

Finally, I used the following to actually allocate the free space to the root and home partitions:

lvextend -L +20G /dev/fedora/home
lvextend -L +20G /dev/fedora/root
resize2fs /dev/fedora/home
resize2fs /dev/fedora/root

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