Help! Problem with paritions!

**The Elite Noob** · December 25th, 2010

Hiya! I have a question, i have two hard drives, a 500 gb one, and a 40 gb one.
On the 40 gb one, with 4 partitons,

One 1.5 gb swap space
3 gb /tmp
15 gb partiton for /boot
and a 20 gb for /root or /

Now, i need to increase my /root partiton into my /home one, so my root can be a 50 gb partiton. 20 gb from the 40 gb hd, and a 30 gb from the 500 gb hard drive.
now how can i do this? help please!

**Bitrate** · December 25th, 2010

sudo apt-get install gparted

**JC Cheloven** · December 25th, 2010

So, your /home partition currently stuffs tour 500gb HD, right?
And you want to increase your root partition taking space from that other disk. Thus your root would result splitted in two physical disks (!).

I'm not sure if that's feasible. It isn't to my humble knowlegde, though. I'd say you'll need to reinstall with a better planned partition scheme.

BTW, your complicated setup caught my attention. 15 Gb for /boot: why that much? And that many partitions... is it a server? Anyway, best of luck. Perhaps someone else has a more clever idea.

EDIT: perhaps if you post the output of the following comands at terminal, someone can gain a better understanding of your setup:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

sudo mount

**The Elite Noob** · December 25th, 2010

Originally Posted by JC Cheloven

So, your /home partition currently stuffs tour 500gb HD, right?
And you want to increase your root partition taking space from that other disk. Thus your root would result splitted in two physical disks (!).

I'm not sure if that's feasible. It isn't to my humble knowlegde, though. I'd say you'll need to reinstall with a better planned partition scheme.

BTW, your complicated setup caught my attention. 15 Gb for /boot: why that much? And that many partitions... is it a server? Anyway, best of luck. Perhaps someone else has a more clever idea.

EDIT: perhaps if you post the output of the following comands at terminal, someone can gain a better understanding of your setup:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

sudo mount

I thought i would need that for boot, for the kernel, looks like i was mistaken.

so here is the output of

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bede6

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       60802   488384512   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00010638

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1         426     3417088   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2             426        4866    35662849    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5             608        2432    14647296   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6            2432        4866    19550208   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 4040 MB, 4040748544 bytes
125 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1018 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7750 * 512 = 3968000 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000e09b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1        1018     3944719    b  W95 FAT32

and output of

Code:

sudo mount

Code:

/dev/sdb6 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs type debugfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda1 on /home type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
/dev/sdb1 on /tmp type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
/dev/sdb5 on /boot type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/theelitenoob/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=theelitenoob)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/NOOB type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush)

**JC Cheloven** · December 26th, 2010

Mmmm... first of all, you think you have a swap space, but you haven't any. Swap partition should be listed by fdisk -l. It is generally advised to have a swap partition as big as your ram. Not that serious though (it will be seldom used; some people thinks it's actually a waste of disk space).

As to the rest, your former explanation was quite accurate.
Again, I may be wrong, but I think *what you intend to do is not feasible*, for the reason mentioned in my previous post.

So, some alternate advice: some 300Mb should be largely enough for /boot. You could take almost the entire 15Gb (14.7) to expand the root. You would end up with a almost a 35Gb for root. ¿Should that be convenient?

in order to do so, start from live, fire up gparted, shrink sdb5 to ~300Mb (apply changes), expand sdb6 to fill the recently freed space (apply changes)

That may take a while, and is somehow prone to errors in my experience, but it should work. BTW I assume that your sensible data is in sda, thus safe regarding these operations.

If you finally consider reinstalling, and don't have any serious reason to do otherwise, I'd suggest to keep your /home in sda1 (that's good habits), but no separate partitions for /boot and /temp. Rather root (/) in a new sdb1 resized to say 38 Gb, which will include /boot & /temp as folders, and a new sdb2 of about 2Gb for swap. Both may be primary, no problem. If unsure, you can post a screenshot of gparted (on your sdb disk) before doing permanent changes.

Cheers

**okkadiroglu** · December 26th, 2010

Hi,

I am having a similar problem too. I think after the most recent update this happened. In my case I would like to increase disk space /dev/sda1 for the /. How can I do it?

Many thanks

results for fdisk -l and mount is given below.

oyo@oyo-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97669817

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 30401 244196001 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c2869

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 851 6835626 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 852 14593 110382615 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 852 1419 4562428+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 1420 14593 105820123+ 83 Linux
oyo@oyo-desktop:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs type debugfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb1 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /usr type ext3 (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/oyo/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=oyo)

**okkadiroglu** · December 26th, 2010

Hi,

Additional information from GParted.

/dev/sda1 ext3 / 6.53GB 6.45GB 69.72MB boot
/dev/sda2 extended 105.27GB

/dev/sda5 linux-swap 4.35GB
/dev/sda6 ext3 /usr 100.92GB 10.38GB 90.52GB

**The Elite Noob** · December 26th, 2010

@JC Cheloven
Thanks man! I'll do that now!
Really appreciate it!

Originally Posted by okkadiroglu

Hi,

Additional information from GParted.

/dev/sda1 ext3 / 6.53GB 6.45GB 69.72MB boot
/dev/sda2 extended 105.27GB

/dev/sda5 linux-swap 4.35GB
/dev/sda6 ext3 /usr 100.92GB 10.38GB 90.52GB

Make your own thread mate...
these are my problems...

**JC Cheloven** · December 30th, 2010

Originally Posted by The Elite Noob

@JC Cheloven
Thanks man! I'll do that now!
Really appreciate it!

You're welcome. Did you finally found your way?

**The Elite Noob** · December 31st, 2010

Originally Posted by JC Cheloven

You're welcome. Did you finally found your way?

Yep, i first noted all the packages i downloaded, things i had installed,
then reinstalled ubuntu, set / on my 40 gb partiton, and restored my software.