I have a Ubuntu server where my boot partition needs to be expanded:
The server is virtual and running on VMWare. I have booted from the GParted LIVE CD (version 0.27.0) but GParted doesn't let me resize the partitions.
If I understand correctly I need to move some of the 4GB unallocated space (equal to the size I would like to expand the boot partition with) so it is located just right of the boot partition.
The yellow locks in the image appearently means that the partition /dev/sda5
is mounted, but I don't understand by who and why – since I'm booting from a LIVE CD.
Calling sudo umount /dev/sda2
or sudo umount /dev/sda5
just tells me that they aren't mounted:
GParted allows me to click deactivate on /dev/sda5
but it doesn't change anything:
In the end I would like to expand /dev/sda5
to take up the remaining unallocated space, but the first step is to expand the boot partition.
How can I expand the boot partition?
Best Answer
I faced the exact same problem, came across this post, and solved it. I did the following with a 16.04.3 live CD:
Used KDE Partition Manager to expand
/dev/sda2
to the end of the driveUsed KDE Partition Manager to move
/dev/sda5
to the end of the driveTried to use KDE Partition Manager to squeeze out the empty space on the left side of
/dev/sda2
, but failed. It wanted to first move/dev/sda2
to the right and then chop off an equal amount of space from the right side of/dev/sda2
but there was no room on the drive to do so.Used gparted to squeeze out the empty space on the left side of
/dev/sda2
.Used gparted to grow
/dev/sda1
and occupy the whole space.It worked without updating grub.
Notes:
/dev/sda5
is encapsulated by/dev/sda2
so you can't move or expand/dev/sda5
without making changes on/dev/sda2
first.You may try to move
/dev/sda2
directly to the right. I should have tried it before expanding/dev/sda2
.I used KDE Partition Manager first because I was convinced that gparted doesn't support LV, but now I doubt it because I can activate/deactivate LV with gparted, and I will try gparted for the same operations if I have the chance in the future.
Update:
I recreated the scenario in a virtual machine and tried gparted from 16.04.3 live CD. Now I can confirm that the whole procedure can be done solely by gparted, but I can't move
/dev/sda2
directly to the right.