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I run a dual boot with Windows 10 / Ubuntu 18.04. Back when I set this up I was not expecting to spend this much time on Ubuntu and was thinking that Windows 10 would remain my primary OS, but I'm not teaching you how things happen: now Ubuntu is by far my main OS. I didn't give Ubuntu enough disk space at this time and would like to steal some Windows space to extend my /home partition in Ubuntu by 150GB. I now have 3 Windows partitions: C, D (from which I'd like to crop some space) and a small on which I'm not sure it's for. To the side of them, I have a logical partition containing 3 Ubuntu partitions: swap, /home and / .

GParted lets me take away space from D, creating some unallocated space, but when I try to make this space ext4 so it can become part of my home I can't because that would make it 5 partitions, which is not allowed.

My question is: Can I somehow force it to convert that unallocated space into ext4 temporarily and then merge it and Home together or am I screwed? I have a bunch of stuff installed on both OS and don't really want to make a reinstall.

Here is how it looks right now.

Here is how it looks right now

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  • You need to have a LiveUSB to extend partitions using GP
    – Kulfy
    May 27, 2018 at 20:47
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    Best to use Windows to resize NTFS partitions and reboot immediately and run chkdsk. With the now old MBR(msdos) partitioning and 4 partition limit, you have to play the old slide game. Be sure to have good back ups as any interruption will corrupt data. You have to shrink primary, then expand extended partition to include the unallocated. Then slide partitions left & expand right. Depends on what is where on drive. Alternative is to just use as data partition. Like this but on same drive for some or all data. askubuntu.com/questions/1013677/…
    – oldfred
    May 27, 2018 at 21:07
  • So basically Use the unalocated to increase the size of the partition that contains the ubuntu partitions ? I tried that. For some reason the option is not avalaible... I now have SDA 1 to 3 as windows, alongside with my empty space and then SDA 4 containing SDA 5 to 7, respectively being swap, / and /home. i'll try to include a screenshot of my setup on the original post
    – Bruh
    May 27, 2018 at 21:29

1 Answer 1

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@oldfred is correct... Best to use Windows to resize NTFS partitions and reboot immediately and run chkdsk.

Make sure that you have a good backup of your important Ubuntu and Windows files, as this procedure can corrupt or loose data.

Here's an abbreviated procedure...

The use of an extended partition (sda4) makes this a little difficult. I'll outline the easiest way first, and we can add more to the procedure if we have to.

Keep these things in mind:

  • always start the entire procedure with issuing a swapoff on any mounted swap partitions, and end the entire procedure with issuing a swapon on that same swap partition

  • a move is done by pointing the mouse pointer at the center of a partition and dragging it left/right with the hand cursor

  • a resize is done by dragging the left/right side of a partition to the left/right with the directional arrow cursor

  • if any partition can't be moved/resized graphically, you may have to manually enter the specific required numeric data (don't do this unless I instruct you to)

  • you begin any move/resize by right-clicking on the partition in the lower part of the main window, and selecting the desired action from the popup menu, then finishing that action in the new move/resize window

Do the following...

Note: if the procedure doesn't work exactly as I outline, STOP immediately and DO NOT continue.

  • boot the a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB
  • start gparted
  • move sda3 all the way left
  • resize the left side of sda4 all the way left
  • move sda5, sda6, and sda7 all the way left
  • resize the right size of sda7 all the way right

If it looks correct, click the Apply button.

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  • making backups right now, I'll try that in a few hours, thanks. yesterday at night I did try to slide the partitions left/right but it didn't seem to do anything...
    – Bruh
    May 28, 2018 at 10:24
  • @Bruh in gparted, make sure there are no lock icons next to partitions 4-7. If so, you'll have to turn off swap, or unmount the others manually.
    – heynnema
    May 28, 2018 at 12:50
  • It worked ! Both OS are booting as intended, windows just took a bit longer to start but i guess that makes sense considering his files were moved around quite a bit xD Thanks to both of you <3
    – Bruh
    May 28, 2018 at 17:22

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