im having trouble adding free disk space to ubuntu
 

okay so the big partition is win7
i can add the unallocated space to win7 but not ubuntu.
is there a way to add that space to ubuntu?
(pic is from liveboot from cd)

You have to expand the extended first. Resize that first to use all the unallocated, apply that, then you will be able to resize the sda5.

so basically resize windows 7 again and THEN resize ubuntu via a liveboot?

Move and resize sda3 so it starts at the end of sda2, and ends at the beginning of sda4, (so there should be 0 blocks before and after) and is at its maximum size.

After that it's just a matter of moving and resizing sda5 and sda6. Move sda6 so it has 0 blocks after it, and then resize sda5 to the largest possible size.

This is assuming you want all of the extra space to go to your ext4 partition.

No, you don't need to resize win7.

Using gparted, resize the extended partition to take up the unallocated space, then commit the change. Then resize the Ubuntu partition (which is inside the extended partition) to take up the free space inside the extended partiton. Commit that change also.

Save the changes and a new partition table will then be written.

Im going to try these suggestions as soon as i can guys.
im in the middle of working on a term paper but thanks for the help, much appreciated.