Re: Using GParted to Move Unallocated Space to XP Partition
I just did that last night, for the first time, and I got it to work. But maybe my situation was different. Anyway, here's what I had to start with (too bad I didn't take snaps - but I remember it pretty well):
first partition was a 10gb XP partition
second was a 10gb linux-swap partition
third was my working ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 20gb partition
after that was available space I'd left for futures
I wanted to add that linux-swap space to the XP (for MS Streets and trips). I figured that it would be best to add contiguous space, if available. Else I could have created a new partition and made it a drive letter, etc., but that doesn't produce more "Program files" space for big programs.
So I figured I'd delete the linux-swap and then expand the XP, then re-allocate the linux-swap in that available space.
But it looked scary, especially since I also had to change a partition to 'extended', also. And I didn't really want to blow either the XP or Ubuntu partitions.
The only backup plan I had was to rebuild the whole thing on a fresh HDD, if I screwed up, and then finagle all the old stuff over to that newer bigger HDD, which would have right-size partitions.
But it all worked out, and took about an hour.
I deleted he linux-swap.
Increased size of the XP partition.
Allocated an extended partition from the available space at the end.
Allocated a linux-swap within the extended partition.
Tried to boot, but kept getting "Error 17".
So I stuck the old GRUB CD into the CD drive and booted from it. then I fixed the MBR to bootup partition 0, the XP, which is "(hda,0)".
I still couldn't bootup ubuntu, but I finally figured out that when I deleted that old linux-swap and put the space in XP that I had actually eliminated one partition so that the partition numbers changed.
GRUB gives a guy a chance to temp edit the boot partition list (somewhere in there when you're trying to boot it) when you get a "GRUB>" prompt and it says you can 'e' edit, or 'c' get a cmdline, or uparrow/downarrow to move around.
So I 'e' edited it and changed the line that had "(hda,3)" to "(hda,2)" to account for the removed partition, and it booted up ubuntu!
But then I had to do that every time I wanted to boot, so to make it permanent I brought up a ubuntu Terminal and started an edit:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
and then I edited every occurrence of "(hda,x)" to make sure 'x' was correct.
While I was at it, I also removed some old unused kernel boots that I never used anymore.
Good luck!
ubuntu user # 17477 , linux user # 454685
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