need to repartition hard drive to increase ubuntu part.

[bharper34]

I loaded edubuntu on a notebook with a 64 GB HD...now windows XP is taking up all the free space and I want to work exclusively in edubuntu without uninstalling XP...please help...I need step by step by step by step instructions...I do not know linux, but am willing to learn...Thank you.

[logos34]

You should be able to use gparted to shrink windows and expand edubuntu root.

Can you post:

sudo fdisk -l

and

df -h

or better yet a screenshot of Gparted (settings>admin>partition editor)

[Excalibre]

I loaded edubuntu on a notebook with a 64 GB HD...now windows XP is taking up all the free space and I want to work exclusively in edubuntu without uninstalling XP...please help...I need step by step by step by step instructions...I do not know linux, but am willing to learn...Thank you.
The easiest way to deal with it will be to google "partedmagic" and download the partedmagic LiveCD which will allow you to alter your partition table, taking some space from XP and giving it to Ubuntu.

Download the disc image to your desktop, right-click it, and you should get an option in the menu to burn it to a CD. You'll then boot from that CD (you may have to access your BIOS settings to tell it to check for a bootable CD before it looks for a hard drive -- this is the same thing you probably did to install Edubuntu from the installation CD in the first place.)

The CD will allow you to resize your partitions, giving less disk space to XP and more to Edubuntu. There's a fairly simple graphical tool on the partedmagic CD to do this, and lots of useful documentation. But basically, if you installed Edubuntu yourself, you've already screwed around with partitions. This is the same basic process. If you need more explicit instructions, let me know.

[Hashmere]

I recently needed to do what you are trying to do and I used Paragon Partition Manager.

http://www.partition-manager.com/

I used to the full version but i heard the trial part works for what you are trying to do. You may want to confirm that statement though.

It can repartition without deleting anything from your computer.

[Gannon8]

Why not pay nothing and use GParted?
And before you do anything, DEFRAGMENT YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE UBER-WELL FIRST (Right click on your C: drive, select properties, go to the tools tab, and click the button under defragment. Then just run it, perhaps a couple of times.)
If you don't you could lose files.

[bharper34]

Thank you everyone for offering advice. I am trying to go down the GParted route despite the fact that I have no idea what I am doing. Please take a look at the following information and let me know what comes next. I do not have a cd drive on this machine, but do have a flash drive I could use if necessary...

In Gparted I get two drives:

/dev/sda1 fat 16 70.57 MiB used 8.46 MiB unused 62.11 MiB

/dev/sda2 (with a lock) ntfs /boot,/host 29.75Gib used 17.69 Gib unused 12.06 GiB Boot

I want my edubuntu to have the book of the drive space...I currently only have music files on edubuntu and nothing on XP, so loss of data is not a concern...thank you.

[Excalibre]

Thank you everyone for offering advice. I am trying to go down the GParted route despite the fact that I have no idea what I am doing. Please take a look at the following information and let me know what comes next. I do not have a cd drive on this machine, but do have a flash drive I could use if necessary...

In Gparted I get two drives:

/dev/sda1 fat 16 70.57 MiB used 8.46 MiB unused 62.11 MiB

/dev/sda2 (with a lock) ntfs /boot,/host 29.75Gib used 17.69 Gib unused 12.06 GiB Boot

I want my edubuntu to have the book of the drive space...I currently only have music files on edubuntu and nothing on XP, so loss of data is not a concern...thank you.
That's . . . odd. I take it this is a Dell computer? Because they tend to have a small fat 16 partition first on the disk like you're describing here. But there should be a third partition, sda3, in which Edubuntu is installed.

Go to a terminal prompt and type "sudo fdisk -l". That will show your partition table, which you can copy and paste here so we can all take a look. You should get something like this (which is mine.)



Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd0f4738c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2454 19711723+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2455 16198 110398680 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 25173 30394 41945715 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2455 15154 102012718+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 15155 16198 8385898+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris


There's no reason you should have to lose any data in this process, by the way. There's always a risk when you screw with your partition table and ideally everything should be backed up but if nothing you have on there is important, then I guess that's not a big deal.

Incidentally, you won't be able to do what you're trying to do by running gparted from Edubuntu. gparted can't alter any partition that's currently mounted (that is, any partition that you have access to at the time) and if you're running Edubuntu, you can't unmount the partition you're running it from. The partedmagic Live CD allows you to boot from it instead of from Edubuntu so all your partitions will be unmounted and you'll be able to alter them all however you like with its included copy of gparted.

[kansasnoob]

I see that Gparted is available in a Stable Live USB form, but I've never used it:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

I also see you can put GParted Live on a harddisk:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livehd.php

Again, I've tried neither!

[Excalibre]

I see that Gparted is available in a Stable Live USB form, but I've never used it:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

I also see you can put GParted Live on a harddisk:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livehd.php

Again, I've tried neither!
Look, the partedmagic live CD is free, and it's vastly better than the gparted live CD. I can't imagine that the gparted live USB thing is any better than their live CD.

If you haven't used either, is it really a good idea to recommend them to someone?

[bharper34]

Thank you...here you go...

Disk /dev/sda: 32.0 GB, 32017047552 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3892 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 9 72261 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 10 3892 31190197+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

[Excalibre]

Okay, it doesn't look like you have an edubuntu partition at all. Have you just been running it from the Live CD? Or have you actually installed it somewhere (on an external hard drive, maybe?)

[kansasnoob]

Look, the partedmagic live CD is free, and it's vastly better than the gparted live CD. I can't imagine that the gparted live USB thing is any better than their live CD.

If you haven't used either, is it really a good idea to recommend them to someone?

Uh, I was replying to this:

"I do not have a cd drive on this machine, but do have a flash drive I could use if necessary..."

Pretty hard to run a live CD without a CD drive isn't it:confused:

I was only looking for alternatives, and I made it clear that I hadn't personally tried it, therefore I can't profess to it's efficiency.

[bharper34]

No I do not believe I installed from Live CD...this notebook doesn't have an external drive or CD drive at all. I installed from within XP using a flash drive that had the copy of Ubuntu on it.

[Duck2006]

So you did a Wbui install then?

[kansasnoob]

I wonder then if it's a Wubi install. I tried Wubi once just to see what it was like but don't know much about it.

One dumb question, Ubuntu does run with the flash drive unplugged, eh?

[kansasnoob]

http://wubi-installer.org/support.php

[bharper34]

yes, it does. I used Wubi...one update...I only have a 32GB SSD drive...

[Excalibre]

Uh, I was replying to this:

"I do not have a cd drive on this machine, but do have a flash drive I could use if necessary..."

Pretty hard to run a live CD without a CD drive isn't it:confused:

I was only looking for alternatives, and I made it clear that I hadn't personally tried it, therefore I can't profess to it's efficiency.
I'm sorry, you're right. I totally missed what he said. I apologize for my tone, it was unwarranted.

[Excalibre]

yes, it does. I used Wubi...one update...I only have a 32GB SSD drive...
So, to summarize, you don't actually have an Ubuntu partition, you're running it from a virtual disk which is somewhere on the Windows partition. And you want to increase the size of that virtual disk.

I can't help you with that, but the Wubi Guide (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide) has some instructions. It's probably not too hard to do. Good luck!

[youthforlinux]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=438591 contains a guide on transfering a Wubi virtual partition to a real one.

[logos34]

If a Wubi install is what you have, and you want to increase edubuntu's space without tranferrring it to a new, dedicated partition, then you want to look at this LVPM page:

http://lubi.sourceforge.net/lvpm.html
(-->'Resizing virtual disks using LVPM')

There's been quite a few requests for that lately

[bharper34]

Man...if only I had your post 35 minutes ago...at this point I uninstalled and re-installed the whole thing to increase the disk size at the first screen of WUBI...Thank you though, that was an extremely thourough walk through of how to completely solve my issue. Thank you to everyone for your help.:)