Resizing etx3 paritition

[terrordrone]

Hi,

i want to remove some 6-8Gb from my /sda7 and give it to my ext3

i have parition magic in windows..
i dont have *parted on my kubuntu

please give me the easiest and fastest way to do it..
(as am new to linux)

[toad]

Re: Resizing etx3 paritition

Could you please post the output of

sudo fdisk -l

so we see your disk's geometry - cheers. Also please state which partition (/dev/sdax) you want to have the 6GB appended to.

[terrordrone]

Re: Resizing etx3 paritition

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x85ab85ab

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1305 10482381 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1306 12597 90702990 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 12598 14593 16032870 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 1306 4569 26218048+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 4570 8485 31455238+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 8486 12401 31455238+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8 12402 12597 1574338+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

my ext drive = sda3
the drive from which i would want to take out space from is : sda7

so after its done..
../sda3 would be 16+7 = 23G (ext3 partition)
../sda7 would be 31-7 = 24G

[kubicle]

Re: Resizing etx3 paritition

Unfortunately there is no easy way of doing it. Partitions have several limitations, it needs to be contiguous (plus sda3 is a primary partition and sda7 is a logical partition in an extended partition and those can't be combined)...the process would require so many steps it's hardly worth it (and it might even be impossible, considering you'd have to perform several different operations, some of which might be unsupported.

There are a few relatively fast ways you can get more space from sda7 to linux that come to mind (LVM, logical volume management, might be a third one although probably no less work/studying than these two):

1. Reinstall
Remove your ext3 and swap partitions, Resize sda7 and the extended partition (unless you wish to make the linux partitions as logical partitions, in which case enlarge the extended partition to the end of the disk) in windows. Reinstall linux in the contiguous empty space at the end of the disk

2. New Partition
The best advice I can offer is to create a new ext3 partition on the empty space created when resizing sda7 and mount that partition on your linux filesystem tree (mount it where you need more space...you could mount it as /home/username/data if you need more space for your files, for example).

[toad]

Re: Resizing etx3 paritition

I agree with kubicle - forget having one ext3 partition but shrink sda7 using the gparted boot cd at gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php and create a new extended ext3 partition with it. Then tie it into your system (/etc/fstab) and off you go. Couldn't be simpler