Shrink main filesystem partition

ZZII · 01-11-2016, 03:35 AM

How?

I tried PartedMagic from Hiren's Boot CD but Linux refused to boot after that telling me that "errors were found when checking the disk for /" (tried twice) I restored the partition to full size in Hiren's and it booted up fine.

Corsair Force LX 128 GB SATA SSD with a 110 GB ext4 partition and a swap partition taking up the rest.
Linux Mint 17.2

I wanted the partition to be shrunk to 45 GB to make room for a Windows partition.

syg00 · 01-11-2016, 04:12 AM

Use gparted liveCD - it will also shrink the filesystem (first).

ZZII · 01-11-2016, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Use gparted liveCD - it will also shrink the filesystem (first).

Hangs at the Debian GNU/Linux information screen. (This is E2B keep in mind. Is it worth burning a CD or won't it make a difference)

I was not contiguous, maybe that makes a difference (it said it copied it to the contiguous space to use it)

syg00 · 01-11-2016, 06:22 AM

Just dd the image to a USB.
Before you start again, let's see what the disk looks like.

Code:

parted /dev/sda "print free"

(adjust device node if necessary).

ZZII · 01-11-2016, 04:37 PM

Code:

KUALUS user # parted /dev/sda "print free"
Model: ATA Corsair Force LX (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
        17.4kB  1049kB  1031kB  Free Space
 1      1049kB  12.2GB  12.2GB  linux-swap(v1)
 2      12.2GB  128GB   116GB   ext4
        128GB   128GB   335kB   Free Space

As far as I remember this was done by Mint's installer (with my choice of swap space)

I'll just try VGA mode. I remember having trouble with using the Ctrl+Alt+F1, F2, etc. consoles and getting a black screen on Mint. I had to change a boot option to use VGA.

I'll see if I can make the ISO contiguous. I don't have any free USBs they all have operating systems on them.

yancek · 01-11-2016, 04:50 PM

You should be able to use either Parted Magic or GParted to do that. You would first need to boot a disk or flash drive with one on it (GParted should be on the Mint Live CD), then open GParted, unmount the Mint partition (sda2) and shrink it by moving the partition from the right to the size you want.

ZZII · 01-11-2016, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

You should be able to use either Parted Magic or GParted to do that. You would first need to boot a disk or flash drive with one on it (GParted should be on the Mint Live CD), then open GParted, unmount the Mint partition (sda2) and shrink it by moving the partition from the right to the size you want.

That's what I did using Parted Magic. I didn't unmount, I don't believe it was mounted. I'll try the Mint CD.

Is it normal for a Live Linux media to spam you with errors before it starts? Clonezilla, GParted and Linux Mint all do this. They throw a ton of errors when at the command line stage but normally boot correctly anyway. (Not always)

OK, 'tis done. Mint boots. I'm guessing Hiren's hack job live Linux messed something up the first time.

Thank-you all for the help.