reducing windows partition

[oshunluvr]

What about a bootable CD?

I'll tell you that you can actually boot to USB from GRUB regardless of what your BIOS says, but I'm not sure you want to do that much work. It's doable, but not simple.

Honestly, if you put in a new motherboard and CPU I'd be surprised if you can't boot to USB. It might be disabled in your BIOS but it's better than even money you could do it.

Post your PC specs and I'll look into it.

[oldgeek]

My computer is basically a PC clone--I originally got it when 486 processors were new, and I've just been replacing parts over the years. I doubt if anything original is still there! The processor: 4 X Intel Core i3 CPU 530@2.93 GHz and memory RAM of 3.8 GiB.
When I turn on or reboot the computer, I get a screen that says ADVANCE without any boot messages at the bottom. It then goes briefly to 'Atheros Boot Agent' which does not specify any alternative boot device when I enter it via F10. After that it goes to Grub. One of my itinerant technicians went into the BIOS (American Megatrends 1985-2010) and set the sequence for booting this way: 1) removable device (USB, I guess) 2) ST3500413AS (HD presumably) and 3) CD/DVD. In order to try a DVD boot disk I'd first have to make one and then alter the order of the boot devices, but I haven't done that yet. Despite the fact that a USB is still set to be the first boot device, the computer ignores it completely when inserted before booting. In fact, most of the time it won't even acknowledge that it exists, not even in Dolphin. That only happens with USB boots, not USB data devices. I hadn't worried too much about the problem as I plan to stick with Kubuntu 16.04 for a couple of years at least but now I see that not being able to boot from a USB could be a problem, especially in the query I orginally made. Maybe I should get a CD and put Gparted on it as a bootable image file and try that. However, I went to the Gparted website and wasn't sure which file to download. Thanks for all the effort in trying to solve my problem.

[oldgeek]

Not sure how I overcame my problem, but I was able to create a bootable Gparted USB and actually got the computer to accept it as a boot device by fiddling around with Atheros. And so from memory I followed Snowhog's procedure and am waiting patiently for the actions to be finished. However, I might have made a mistake. Snowhog suggested I move sda 5 into the area on the left, which I did, but then instead of waiting for Gparted to do the rest I also extending sda5 to the right, which was supposed to be another step. I hope that doesn't affect the process, or I mayn I've finished have to reinstall Kubuntu. Oh well, my data is backed up, and 16.04.1 is out, so it may not be too bad, and now I have almost 60 more GiB to use. I'll post when the job is done to see if I can tag this SOLVED.

[oldgeek]

The process went smoothly, and I got what I wanted. Snowhog, your suggestions worked exactly as they were supposed to. Thanks for the tips--I've learned a lot. Oshunluvr, thanks for the offer on looking into my USB booting problems, but I got the bootable Gparted to work today which means you were right--it can be done. I mark this SOLVED.

[Snowhog]

[Qqmike]

However, I might have made a mistake. Snowhog suggested I move sda 5 into the area on the left, which I did, but then instead of waiting for Gparted to do the rest I also extending sda5 to the right, which was supposed to be another step.

I'm not sure if you meant this, but if you mean that you ordered more than one action before clicking the Apply button, GParted will easily do that for you. GParted aficionados have been known to test GParted by lining up many, many actions prior to clicking Apply (you can google around to find their experiments). Glad you got this nailed down!