Huge Partition after install?

[mfcallahan]

I recently installed ubuntu from CD (Windows 7 previously factory installed, 500GB HD) and used the auto option for partitioning. Everything works fine and Im able to dual boot, though I noticed that the installation partiton is now huge (up from about 50GB with windows 7 only to 168 GB!). I also noticed the GRUB boot loader that there are multiple options: Ubuntu normal, ubuntu recovery mode, two different memory tests, Windows 7 and (very suprisingly) Windows Vista. Are all of these swelling the partition to its current huge size? Also, is the Windows Vista option normal when not installed previously? When selecting that option, it launches into a windows installation dialog... Im wondering if its possible to trim some fat, and shrink the partition down to something smaller. Is it possible that the Windows Vista is not installed and the partition was created in anticipation of that?

Matt

[tachuela]

Post a picture of Gparted or:
"sudo fdisk -lu"

[mfcallahan]

RE: sudo fdisk -lu

---------
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc63193df

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 21860351 10929152 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 21860352 22065151 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 22065152 608294867 293114858 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 608301225 976768064 184233420 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 608301288 961731224 176714968+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 961731288 976768064 7518388+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
-----------


From my assumption, the largest partition is my normal file system, the next largest being Windows & Ubuntu installations, one for backup, and one for hibernate settings (which I've read can be quite large. Like I mentioned befofe, Windows Vista should not be installed on this machine, though it shows up in the boot loader. I suspect that this is why my installation partition is so large.


Thanks again,

Matt

[mfcallahan]

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[SecretCode]

I recently installed ubuntu from CD (Windows 7 previously factory installed, 500GB HD) and used the auto option for partitioning. Everything works fine and Im able to dual boot, though I noticed that the installation partiton is now huge (up from about 50GB with windows 7 only to 168 GB!). I also noticed the GRUB boot loader that there are multiple options: Ubuntu normal, ubuntu recovery mode, two different memory tests, Windows 7 and (very suprisingly) Windows Vista. Are all of these swelling the partition to its current huge size? Also, is the Windows Vista option normal when not installed previously? When selecting that option, it launches into a windows installation dialog... Im wondering if its possible to trim some fat, and shrink the partition down to something smaller. Is it possible that the Windows Vista is not installed and the partition was created in anticipation of that?

Matt

Windows Vista was probably "detected" by the Grub2 bootloader in Ubuntu - maybe the factory install actually did have a Vista alternative, or maybe the recovery partition has a vista component on it.

I don't understand what you mean by the installation partition growing. Each operating system is installed on its own partition. There's no way I know of that an Ubuntu installation would cause an NTFS partition to grow in size ... only to be shrunk in order to make space.

Also, hibernation in Windows is normally handled by a file within the same partition; Linux uses the swap area which is normally a separate partition. Yours is about 3.5GB which is normal.

sda1 ~5GB is probably the system recovery partition.
sda2 which is only 50MB is odd - this must be a boot partition created by windows (also part of the factory install?) - this might be what Grub thinks is Vista. I wouldn't worry about it.
sda3 ~140GB has to be your Windows 7 partition. There'll be no Ubuntu code at all in this partition.

(The different Ubuntu options and the memtest options are all run from the ubuntu partition sda5.)

Are you sure one of the partitions was ever just 50GB?

[kansasnoob]

Post the output of:


sudo parted /dev/sda print

Much more human readable ;)

Most of your grub2 questions are answered here:

http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

[mfcallahan]

RE: sudo parted /dev/sda print

Model: ATA SAMSUNG HM500JI (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 11.2GB 11.2GB primary ntfs
2 11.2GB 11.3GB 105MB primary ntfs boot
3 11.3GB 311GB 300GB primary ntfs
4 311GB 500GB 189GB extended
5 311GB 492GB 181GB logical ext4
6 492GB 500GB 7699MB logical linux-swap(v1)

[mfcallahan]

also, forgot to include in previous post: sda1 is Vista, and sda2 is Windows 7, according to the options on the boot loader.

[darkod]

RE: sudo parted /dev/sda print

Model: ATA SAMSUNG HM500JI (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 11.2GB 11.2GB primary ntfs
2 11.2GB 11.3GB 105MB primary ntfs boot
3 11.3GB 311GB 300GB primary ntfs
4 311GB 500GB 189GB extended
5 311GB 492GB 181GB logical ext4
6 492GB 500GB 7699MB logical linux-swap(v1)

It looks quite normal.
sda1 is your recovery partition. Probably that's the install process you see starting if you select it in grub menu. Vista and 7 have similar boot records and win7 recovery partition can be reported wrongly as vista boot.
sda2 is the 100MB win7 boot partition, and sda3 is the win7 system partition.
Then in the extended partition, sda5 is your ubuntu root and sda6 swap.

About the sizes of the partitions, we don't know what your disk looked like so we can't judge. You have to take into account that some partition was shrinked (probably sda3) to make space for ubuntu (sda4 with sda5 and sda6 inside).
Which of the partitions look with "wrong" size to you?

[SecretCode]

OK, I see the linux partition is the one that is 168GiB, the number you gave. Was there a 50GB linux partition before? And this has "grown".

On a 500GB drive I would partition it differently - 20-40GB tops for each OS partition, and the rest in data partitions. But if it's working the way it is, no need to rush into anything!

[mfcallahan]

Thanks for the help, I think I will leave as for now, eveything seems to be working OK. 300BG left on the HD is enough left to work with for me. Would Gparted be the way to go if I want to resize anything in the future?

[mfcallahan]

** 300 gb

[SecretCode]

Yes, gparted is the way to go.

Just remember to take seriously the warning that any partition editing carries a risk of losing data. Make backups first.

[tachuela]

Use Gparted Live CD, ( it works with unmounted partitions; which is better):
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php