In a bit of a pickle about my extended partition!
 

Hey guys,

This is my first post here so be nice! Anyway, I have just installed Linux mint cinnamon, and allocated pretty small partition sizes which I now want to adjust. However, when using gParted it says that I cannot dismount the "home" partition because it was in use. I then attempted from the live CD, but this had the resize option grayed out, because the linux logical partitions are in an extended partition separate from the 300 gb of unallocated space on my HDD. How would I be able to add this space to my linux partitions, and should it go onto my home or root mounted partition?

I don't know how to add an image on this but I'll happily email you an image of the partition setup from gparted if needs be. (just give me your email address)

Thanks a bunch in advance,
Sam

LiveCD's the way to do it.

If I remember correctly, you need to first extend the extended partition, and then the logical partitions into the extra space which you just moved into the extended partition.

I would put most of the extra space into your home partition, as you're more likely to add music/videos/documents than you are programmes - but as with everything, it's a balance that depends on exactly what you use your computer for. As long as you keep an eye on them, and are ready to adjust them if one's getting full, it's not that much of a problem.

For adding attachments, if you go to the full editor screen, there's a little paperclip icon above the message body which you can use to attach images.

Thanks a lot for the reply! However, there doesnt seem to be an option to enlarge the extended partition nor does there seem to be anything about it on google... can anyone explain to me how to do so. Oh, and before i forget, here is that image I was talking about...

You need to first extend sda3 then you can either move or resize existing partitions and/or add additional partitions

Btw in order to resize sda5 or sda6 you will have to move the other partitions to the right.
Also how much ram do you have as your swap partition is quite large.

A lot of live CDs automatically detect and enable the swap space. That prevents the partition changes you want (such as resizing the extended partition).

So within the live CD, you need to disable swapping.

In think the command (as root) is
Then retry the partitioning tool to resize the extended partition.

That is one of the reasons I always advise beginners not to have home separate from root in the first place. But too late for that :(

I think you'll need to make your own guess now about where you will be using space.

After you grow sda3, you need to move (and probably grow) sda7 to get it out of the way in order to grow sda6 (assuming you want to grow sda6).

You need to extend the extended partition into the unallocated space, and then resize the partitions inside it...

To change them, you have to click on that "teal" portion and then use menu options to move/resize. Inside gParted, you then actually click and drag the edges of the partition to pull it into the unused space... Then,... you need to click the checkmark to commit your changes... and get yourself a cold, or hot drink...

Once you extended your extended partition (like how I did that?!),... you do the same for your partitions that you want to grow. In addition to growing /home, you're going to have to move it. Do this in steps, rather than trying to commit a bunch of changes all at once... Don't actually move the starting point of / ,... just grow it in the space you cleared by moving /home.

Please pay attention to what the OP has said before repeating the same insufficient advise.

From that we can deduce that the swap space has been enabled and must be disabled before the extended partition can be resized.

Not Necessarily, ... I have swap in an extended partition all the time, and I've never had a gParted live disk activate swap and prevent me from moving anything. GParted Live usually puts its entire filesystem in RAM... Anything else would defeat the purpose, every time a gParted Live CD is launched on a system that has a swap drive. Install CDs never failed to allow me to repartition either... as far as I can remember. But the screen shot is only gParted,... It doesn't show this to be an install CD, and on GParted Live, gParted usually defaults to fullscreen, just as his picture would indicate...

What has prevented me from moving things has been accidentally forgetting to select the correct partition, or trying to move the partitions within the extended partition, without first resizing the extended partition that it's inside. The empty, unallocated space is not in its own partition, and from the diagram, it's not in any filesystem or partition.

The only other choice is dependent on the original Windows install,... and whether this system is using some form of GPT/MBR hybrid, and/or has ExFAT partitions, which a regular gParted disk can't read... For that, he'd need Parted Magic.

But don't make it seems like I don't know what I'm talking about... I used gParted just last night in a system...

Oh,...And another thing,... He HAS a separate /home partition,... it's right there in the image... The problem is,... it's just small. Plus, in the picture, he has no partitions selected,... so options would be greyed out.

Thanks guys, got it in the end - resized home to 200gb and root to 100gb. Time to give a very small something back to the forums :P. You can also turn off swap in gParted, which saves a tad of time! 8gb; I read that the swap should be about double your ram.

Cheers everyone - I know where to come if I have any more queries!

Actually, that's really old advice from when RAM was measured in MB.
These days, it really depends on how hard you push your system.
Its a very subjective thing by the way, so you'll get lots of different opinions unfortunately.
I tend to go with a number somewhere between 2GB and 1 x RAM.
Given that disk space is dirt cheap these days, probably the latter, but as said, its really up to you.
some people go without entirely, but I'd rather not....

It is also a matter of practicality ... Sometimes, because of drive geometry, you end up with a larger available space than is ordinarily practical for swap. Then it's just a matter of saying. "what the heck."

Brilliant, well done. Please mark the thread as 'SOLVED' using the link at the top of the page, so that other people know the thread contains a solution (and if appropriate, mark posts you found helpful as helpful - e.g. johnsfine's one)

Thanks,