partition trouble

[mattboyslim]

Hi all, after setting up a dual boot with Kubuntu 14.04 and Win 8.1 i was playing around with a few things and realised i needed windows to play some videos. So i booted up the fresh installation of windows and tried to install an antivirus but it turns out i have no room as i made my windows partiton too small.

I then booted kubuntu with a live usb in order to shrink the kubuntu root drive so i now have over 200gb of free space which i want to use to increase the size of my windows 8 partiton. However, gparted will not allow me to do it as it doesnt seem to recogninse the unallocated space when i come to the partition resize screen (note the 'maximum size' is still very small). Ive added a couple of screen grabs so you can see my problem, so if anyone can help me out i would really appreciate it



Many Thanks, Matt

[claydoh]

I think that you would have to go the the trouble of moving/resizing partitions so that the unallocated space is next to your Windows partition. Fun.

You could just partition that space as ntfs, and use it a a separate drive for Windows, if that would help any - I have no clue on that
You could also perhaps see what you need to do to watch the videos in Kubuntu, which might be easier than you think

[Rod J]

If you have just installed Kubuntu and haven't really done much with it I think the quickest way would be to delete the Kubuntu partitions (/dev/sda9 and /dev/sda10) then increase the Windows partition (/dev/sda5) to the right (how much more is up to you, at least 30Gb I'd say). Then recreate the Kubuntu partitions in the remaining space and reinstall Kubuntu.

Or do as Claydoh said and move the Kubuntu partitions to the right, leaving unallocated space to the right of sda5 which then can be expanded into. The downside is it will involve a lot of "disk thrashing" to move the partitions. I try to avoid moving partitions as much as possible as it's really hard on the drive to do that.

[oshunluvr]

As said above: You can't expand a partition into space that's not adjacent. Besides that - your partition table is all out of order so it a little confusing to look at. Moving all that data is going to take hours so don't do it during a storm or anytime you might lose power. Since you have so little data on sda9 and sda10 maybe you could off-load that data to a thumb drive and re-load after the expansion?

Maybe next time spend a little time planning so your partitions are more suited to your uses.

[mattboyslim]

The partitions were already like that, I just added a windows, and ubuntu one and figured that the rest were important so just left them there. They are both fresh installs so I guess I'll just wipe the machine and start again.

[millusions]

wow! what a mess!
love the 30 gig linux swap partition! lol

in the long run, as suggested before, i'd wipe the drive if thats an option available for you. It looks like you have some recovery partitions setup for Windows 8 recovery, is that right?

and keep it clean this time

[mattboyslim]

Partitions are a new concept to me, I've always just had a windows laptop until it stops working properly and then I would just buy a new one! Got fed up with being a Microsoft sheep so am trying to get my head around Linux as a replacement. I have no idea about the 30gb swap partition, pretty sure I didn't add it myself as I thought a swap was supposed to be the same size as the amount of RAM you have (in my case 8gb). As far as windows recovery partitions go I can see they are there but I didn't set them up myself.

Is it possible to boot with a live Linux USB and then use gparted to remove all partitions so I can start from scratch?

[Rod J]

Yes, 8Gb swap would be plenty. I guess the Windows installer created all the extra partitions ... don't know, I haven't installed Windows 8.1 yet. Seems strange it would create the fat32 partitions, haven't seen that before. Also the "unknown" sda4 partition?

Is it possible to boot with a live Linux USB and then use gparted to remove all partitions so I can start from scratch?

Yes, that's probably the way to go. It will be quicker in the long run to do it that way. Just make sure you back up any data you may have already put on the drive before you delete the partitions though.

Install Windows 8.1 first, then shrink the NTFS partition down to a sensible size (leave enough room for Windows to grow if you want to carry on with it as a dual boot system). Then install Kubuntu.

Another thing that I find helpful with partitions is to label them so that even if the partition number changes (sda?) you can still identify the partition with the label.

[Qqmike]

Live Linux CD.
Or this live CD:
GParted Live CD
http://gparted.org/livecd.php

[mattboyslim]

Thanks Rod J, I'll do it that way then. It appears to be a pretty steep learning curve with Linux that's for sure!

[millusions]

no.
dont boot usb and delete partitions!
as Rod said!

do a windows recovery from ur recovery partition first. this will bring u to a brand new state of things.

then, u can download a free partitioning program or use the linux installer one.
shrink windows partition to say 200GB should be plenty.
create extended parition from free space
create 30GB logical / root parition
create 8GB logical swap partition
create remainder logical parition to /home

[Rod J]

OK, but he doesn't need to worry about extended/logical partitions because (unless I'm mistaken) the drive has a GPT partition table.

[mattboyslim]

i did a windows recovery on sunday, then installed kubuntu adding a root, swap and home partition as you have suggested. However, all those other partitions were already there so that would suggest that doing a windows recovery doesnt remove all the wayward partitions and i will be faced with the same problem as before.

[Rod J]

I think "all those other partitions" are actually created by Windows 8.1 when installed. They are actually part of Windows, so don't delete them. If you simply delete the partitions YOU (or the Kubuntu installer) created to install Kubuntu and then do the Windows recovery as suggested by Millusions that should work.

Or, what you could simply do is delete the Kubuntu partitions, expand the NTFS partition labelled "Windows8_OS" to a sensible size and then recreate your Kubuntu partitions. Also, reboot into Windows at least twice to make sure Windows is happy with the changes.

[millusions]

yes, Rod, you are right.

no need to remove windows.

i dont know anything about windows 8, but i believe there is free partitioning software you can download and clean up from Windows, as Rod suggested above