Unallocated space/moving partitions

[Inisfad]

Well, it seems that this is the day for partition questions, but none seem to answer my question. I have had a dual boot Windows/Ubuntu system for a while. I set it up as quite a newbie, and have now encountered a problem. Windows is my first partition, and then I have unallocated space. After the unallocated space, I have my Ubuntu drive and the swap file. I now want to enlarge the Ubuntu drive, but have learned that I can only easily enlarge to unallocated space that is to the right of/after the drive in question. My unallocated space is before my Ubuntu partition. I copied the Ubuntu partition into the unallocated space. Now my drive is sda1 (Windows), unallocated space, sda3 (copy of Ubuntu drive), unallocated space, sda4 (original Ubuntu drive), sda5 (swap file). I have probably done this all wrong, but what do I do now? Is there some way to get the copy of Ubuntu to become what my computer boots to, so that I can remove the original sda4? Thanks (and happy holidays!!)

[sandyd]

Well, it seems that this is the day for partition questions, but none seem to answer my question. I have had a dual boot Windows/Ubuntu system for a while. I set it up as quite a newbie, and have now encountered a problem. Windows is my first partition, and then I have unallocated space. After the unallocated space, I have my Ubuntu drive and the swap file. I now want to enlarge the Ubuntu drive, but have learned that I can only easily enlarge to unallocated space that is to the right of/after the drive in question. My unallocated space is before my Ubuntu partition. I copied the Ubuntu partition into the unallocated space. Now my drive is sda1 (Windows), unallocated space, sda3 (copy of Ubuntu drive), unallocated space, sda4 (original Ubuntu drive), sda5 (swap file). I have probably done this all wrong, but what do I do now? Is there some way to get the copy of Ubuntu to become what my computer boots to, so that I can remove the original sda4? Thanks (and happy holidays!!)

you need to install grub while chrooted into sda3 and update the /etc/fstab file
post output of

sudo fdisk -l

happy holidays to you too.

[|Eric|]

i may sound a bit like a plug : pqmagic works wonders

when you resize move and alter your partition table make shure grub is fine and that fstab needs not to be modified

blkid gives the uuid for the partitions ( this may need to be modified in the fstab)

my usual layout is :
/dev/sda1 = windows
/dev/sda2 = Linux system
/dev/sda3 = swap
/dev/sda4 = everyting else

you can notice im not using extended partitions ... (kind of an old habit)

edit : 40gb is usualy plenty for most systems .

[Inisfad]

Thanks for the replies. Here is the output for fdisk -l: Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x021b021a Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 6375 6500 1012095 83 Linux /dev/sda2 * 1 1938 15566953+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 22889 30401 60348172+ 5 Extended /dev/sda4 6501 17939 91883767+ 83 Linux /dev/sda5 22889 30089 57842001 83 Linux /dev/sda6 30090 30401 2506108+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris Partition table entries are not in disk order Remember, I am a newbie!! When I start Gparted, along the graph at the top, it shows my Windows partition first (sda2), then 33gb unallocated (I reduced my Windows partition size), then sda1 (which has one file in it that is locked - I don't know what this is, but it is an ext2 Linux partition), then sda4 (the copy of my Ubuntu partition), then 37gb unallocated, then sda5 (the Linux partition that is being used), then the linux swap file. I would like to make Linux into one large partition, but don't know how to do this Thanks!! (and sorry for the way this is scrolling across the page. I can't get it to go in the colums that I see when I am writing this. Eck).