Essential Repartition Too Tricky for this Newb

[dialectical1]

Hello! For a good while, I've been stuck using a very outdated, unsupported version of ubuntu (9.10) due too-small linux partition. Last time I checked, the only volume I use only takes a small % of my whole system, but GParted won't let me resize my partitions.

The option to resize is greyed out of the right-click menu.

(One partitions (ntsf) has a warning; but I have no idea why Gparted wouldn't be able to read its contents.)

I've never repartitioned, and am a total noob when it comes to even basic-seeming things, so I would deeply appreciate some help with the actual partitioning, as well.

Here's the sudo fdisk -l readout:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 192 1536000 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 * 192 13843 109655142 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 13844 14594 6026424 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14555 14594 313344 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 13844 14554 5711076 83 Linux

And the df -h readout:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 5.4G 4.5G 610M 89% /
udev 497M 252K 497M 1% /dev
none 497M 332K 497M 1% /dev/shm
none 497M 212K 497M 1% /var/run
none 497M 0 497M 0% /var/lock
none 497M 0 497M 0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda2 105G 34G 71G 33% /media/SQ004286V02

If there's any more info anyone needs, please feel more than welcome to ask! Thanks muchly ^_^

[Bucky Ball]

Boot from the LiveCD and when you're at the desktop, launch Gparted. Right click and unmount partitions you want to delete. Essential. You can right click and unmount from Gparted running regular hard drive install also, except for partition Ubuntu is running on, of course.

Are you unmounting the partitions you want to delete first?

[dialectical1]

Ah, sorry, forgot to mention - my CD drive has been out of commission for years :-/.

There's a bit of a chance a buddy has some extra space on his external drive ... what would be the procedure if he lets me use it?

I don't plan on deleting any partitions, just to resize the huge one - less than half of it is full with years worth of personal files - and then make this one much larger.

[Bucky Ball]

Burn the ISO to a USB dongle if you have one and boot from that.

You can launch Gparted in the hard drive install of Ubuntu, right click, unmount and shrink/expand any of the partitions, except the one you're running Ubuntu from (/).

The other option is to upgrade to 10.04 LTS through update manager. That is supported until April next year and gives is a one click option to upgrade to 12.04 LTS which is supported until 2017.

[dialectical1]

When I unmount the large partition, it puts that caution symbol next to the device's name.

Any I don't know what I'm doing - and I don't want to lose all my data just fooling around .... when I try to do the partition table, it says if I proceed, it will wipe out the disk.

[Bucky Ball]

As I said, if you are trying to resize a partition with any Win post-XP, don't. Use the Windows software to do it. A regular NTFS partition fine (and FAT).

You should ALWAYS do a backup of anything you don't want to lose before doing anything like this. What could possibly go wrong, right?

As for Ubuntu partitions, unmount and go right ahead. The exclaimation mark just means it's unmounted. To reassure yourself, right click and mount just to demonstrate you can.

Good luck with it ... I'd advise to research and read up a bit more about this so you do know what you're doing and feel more confident as you have the information about how to resize you originally requested.

http://au.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...avista&fr2=sfp

[dialectical1]

The option to resize is greyed out on the right-click menu. (This is why I haven't repartitioned - something's not working properly.)

[dialectical1]

How do I move the .tgz/.tar.bz2 backup file onto an external drive? (As per this tutorial) I can't open the folder my most recent backup is in (root), and the tutorial doesn't explain how to change where the backup file will end up.

I have the GParted live USB mounted, but don't know how to run it.

[Bucky Ball]

Boot from the Ubuntu LiveCD. Get to the desktop. Open a file manager. Move it ...

[dialectical1]

I don't have a functioning CD drive. That's why I put the GParted iso on a usb.

Should download another copy of Ubuntu onto an external drive?