Messed up installation

[linuxdummy]

HI folks

Completely new to Linux, I saw Ubuntu in action recently on YouTube so I decided to download it and burn it to disc (version 9)

All went well, I have Vista Premium, grub did the dual boot - but I had selected that the two operating systems operate side by side.

Now Vista has hogged most of the disk space and Ubuntu only has a couple of gb.

What do I do to expand the Ubuntu partition to something like 60gb?

I have 175gb for Vista, I know I can access the partitioner via the Live CD, but how do I adjust the partitions to allow Ubuntu to have 60gb.?

As far as I can see, the partitioner will only let me work on Vista's NFS file, and when I click on the linux swap file etc, delete is greyed out.

Your help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Terry of Astoria]

You may have to reinstall, but try running gparted

sudo gparted
from the live cd.
Use it to shrink your NTFS partition (you may want to defrag from Windows first)
Then maybe "grow" the Linux partition after there is room on the disk for it. In any case once you have shrunk the NTFS partition, then installing Ubuntu to the remaining free space will be easier. If you have to reinstall, you may want to remove your too-small linux partiton first, and start fresh.

[Sef]

You may have to reinstall, but try running gparted
Code:
sudo gparted
from the live cd.
Use it to shrink your NTFS partition (you may want to defrag from Windows first)

1) It is best to use Vista's partitioner to shrink its partition.

2) If you use gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/news.php), then read this faq #9 (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/faq.php) first.

[yeats]

1) It is best to use Vista's partitioner to shrink its partition.

I absolutely agree. This is a very helpful link as well:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/working-around-windows-vistas-shrink-volume-inadequacy-problems/

[linuxdummy]

Argh - I wish I didn't experiment so much. Where is the Vista partitioner?

I loaded the live CD and got some unallocated space sorted, but what a mess I've left.

Take a look at this ...

FAT16 DellUtility 217.45 mib

NTFS Recovery 10.00 gib

Unallocated 4.06 mib

NTFS OS 161.6 gib

Unallocated 56.56 gib

dev/sda4 extended 2.49 gib

sda5 ext3 2.32 gib

sda6 Linux Swap 172.54 mib

Now how can I get all the allocated space together, either delete the linux partitions or expand them?

Is it best to let Vista's partitioner work on this (as I said, where is it?)

Nice wee puzzle for you LOL

Thanks for your input so far guys.

[linuxdummy]

It's ok folks - got off my butt and looked at the help pages of Vista - found the partitioner, deleted the linux partitions, made a total of 61gig unallocated space, installed Ubuntu, and it's running perfectly.

From the previous attempt at partitioning, I know that Vista will now verify the partition when I select it from the GRUB menu.

'bye (for now)