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Thread: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partition.

  1. #11
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    @Elfy, @coffeecat & @Bartender all have excellent suggestions that solve the OP's issue. All I need do is explain:

    To Rick Campbell:

    @Elfy & @coffeecat are providing instructions that allow you to see which of the partitions belong to your current 12.10 install.

    Code:
    cat /etc/fstab
    will output something like the following (yours will be different):

    Code:
    # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
    #
    # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
    # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
    # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
    #
    # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
    proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
    # / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
    UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
    # /home was on /dev/sda2 during installation
    UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
    # swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
    UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx none            swap    sw              0       0
    Code:
    df -h
    will produce something like the following (again, yours will be different):

    Code:
    Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda1              12G  3.0G  8.0G  28% /
    udev                  239M  4.0K  239M   1% /dev
    tmpfs                 100M  784K   99M   1% /run
    none                  5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
    none                  248M  160K  248M   1% /run/shm
    none                  100M  8.0K  100M   1% /run/user
    /dev/sda2              25G  5.6G   18G  25% /home
    In both cases, the parts that say "/dev/sda?" where "?" is a number will tell you which partition is being used by your 12.10 install. This is why you must invoke these commands while you are running your 12.10 system. Knowing which partition number is the one you want to keep means that you can delete the rest.

    @Bartender's suggestion is somewhat different, but also quite valid. He/she is recommending that you nuke all of your Ubuntu/Linux logical partitions (which all reside inside partition #4--the extended partition) and just reinstall 12.10. This will allow GRUB to detect your Windows installation and set up one and only one clean pristine version of 12.10 for a simple dual boot machine.This has the added advantage of not confusing GRUB when it tries to find all of those missing older versions after their partitions have been deleted.

    At this point, the choice is really yours. If you have lots of programs, data and configurations in your 12.10 installation, then you may find it less irritating to delete the partitions you don't want. If you don't have much of anything in your 12.10 installation, then you may just want to start fresh and follow @Bartender's instructions.

  2. #12
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Thanks everyone. Fun for me.

    Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda19 5358008 3192908 1892924 63% /
    udev 501140 4 501136 1% /dev
    tmpfs 203552 904 202648 1% /run
    none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
    none 508876 676 508200 1% /run/shm
    none 102400 36 102364 1% /run/user

    I thought I was using 12.10's home because it is empty each new install.

  3. #13
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    I opened gparted from ubuntu 12.10 cd and deleted partition 19 and 18 but 17 was mounted with a little lock icon and 16 said it needed me to unmount it.
    Hm.
    Can I delete the "unallocated" partitions too?
    Still running, and I feel so much lighter already.

  4. #14
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Hi, Rick -
    It's not hard to unmount partitions when running from an Ubuntu LiveCD.

    However, I've never followed the instructions. What I do once or twice a year is just download the latest .iso version of the stand-alone GParted LiveCD. After downloading the latest version, I use Brasero (or ImgBurn on a Windows PC) to create a bootable CD from the .iso.

    Then I boot from that disc. A GParted LiveCD doesn't mount any partitions, so there's no unmounting. It just makes more sense to me.
    Last edited by Bartender; December 1st, 2012 at 06:35 PM.

  5. #15
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Campbell View Post
    Can I delete the "unallocated" partitions too?
    What do you mean? Isn't the "unallocated" space just free space? Usually unallocated means there isn't a partition. Except, of course, when the unallocated space is 'inside' an extended partition.

    When you're done deleting unecessary partitions, you should be able to expand the partitions you want to keep into the unallocated space.

    However, there is always a risk when moving/expanding partitions that contain data. Especially the bootable partition with the OS.

  6. #16
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Thanks.
    All the viewpoints are speeding the learning process.
    I right clicked on the mounted partitions and turned swap off and then was able to delete everything. Cool.
    Now, installing without auto in the partitioning... it asks me where I want to put / or /home so when I put / in my huge free space it formats to ext4 but then says I should have a swap partition to go with it.
    I love it. Operating Systems that talk.
    Should I have made swap first with about 4 MiB in it? First time not using auto install. I know you guys, Bartender, DuckHook have read volumes on this and are saving me reading time but this sure is fun learning partitioning with the real thing. Now I know what they are talking about in the tutorials.
    Can I spare you guys by just choosing the automatic partitioning now?
    Last edited by Rick Campbell; December 1st, 2012 at 09:35 PM.

  7. #17
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Rick -
    I was under the impression that you were going to try deleting select partitions and keep the ones you wanted.

    Have you now decided to wipe them all and start over?

    If so, choose "Something Else" and when you get to the partition table, just choose to install Ubuntu into the emptied out extended partition. If that's what you have now. You can manually partition swap if you want to. It might be a little confusing the first time but it sounds like you're up for it. Just carve out a small partition (a bit more than your installed RAM if you want suspend) and format it as "linuxswap". It'll be a brown color if you did it right. Then you can just leave the rest alone if you want and tell the installer to install Ubuntu to that extended partition.

    There are small tweaks to the Ubuntu installer almost every time a new versioncomes out, so I'm not sure what you're saying about the installer mentioning a swap. If that's what it wants, just go ahead and make one manually.

    ANOTHER ROUTE IF YOU WANT TO MANUALLY PARTITION / & /HOME:
    If you want to manually partition / and /home from the "Choose Something Else" window, you just carve out about 15 or 20GB for /. Format it as ext4, and make SURE to mount it as /. Then create swap as described above. The swap partition doesn't have to be "mounted", just format it as linuxswap and the system will do the rest. Whatever's left out of the extended partition, create another ext4 partition, and make SURE to mount it as /home. Double-check that you have a partition mounted as /, a swap partition, and another partition that will mount as /home, then move on to the next step.

    I don't think it makes any difference whether swap is created before /home or after. I always create the / partition first, then swap, then /home, but I just do it that way out of habit.
    Last edited by Bartender; December 2nd, 2012 at 01:20 AM.

  8. #18
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Yes, I deleted all and installed automatically:

    Model: ATA TOSHIBA MK2035GS (scsi)
    Disk /dev/sda: 200GB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: msdos

    Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
    1 1049kB 10.5GB 10.5GB primary fat32 boot, diag
    2 10.5GB 105GB 94.8GB primary ntfs
    3 105GB 109GB 3696MB primary ntfs
    4 109GB 200GB 91.1GB extended
    5 109GB 199GB 90.0GB logical ext4
    6 199GB 200GB 1062MB logical linux-swap(v1)

  9. #19
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    How do I look now:

    Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda5 86526336 3157256 78973768 4% /
    udev 501140 4 501136 1% /dev
    tmpfs 203552 856 202696 1% /run
    none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
    none 508876 156 508720 1% /run/shm
    none 102400 48 102352 1% /run/user

  10. #20
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    Re: Remove all partitions not windows or ubuntu 12.10, including separate home partit

    Sorry. Been travelling past 2 days and completely off-line. In the interim, it seems that you've picked up the ins-and-outs of partitioning real fast. Congrats!

    Looks to me like you've got a vastly simplified system now that should work well. If you want us to look at (admire?) the end result, do:

    Code:
    sudo parted /dev/sda print
    again, and post the result. I suspect that it will now have just your Windows partitions and a very simple Linux install on the extended.

    For your future installs, I would highly recommend (at some point) a separate /home partition (doesn't look like you went with one here) and then simply replacing the current version (instead of alongside. Hope you followed the good practice of backing up all critical data before your did any of this.

    If everything is running well, please mark this thread "solved" using the thread tool at top of page. And again, congrats on furthering your partition knowledge.

    edit: ouch! Overlooked your prior post. You've obviously already shown us your new partition table and it looks real clean. You are go for liftoff
    Last edited by DuckHook; December 2nd, 2012 at 06:34 PM. Reason: addendum

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