Useless Partitions?

[LionKing34]

Hay guise.

I have just installed Linux Mint 14 on a Toshiba Laptop which previously had Windows (well it still does). Right now I only have a 10GB partition for Linux Mint and a large partition with Windows still installed. But there are two other partitions which I am not sure about: TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME (1.46GB) and HDDRECOVERY (9.71GB). I believe HDDRECOVERY is like what you use instead of using a Windows disk to recover your system, but I am not sure about TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME.

My question is: Can I get rid of these two partitions to make some space for Linux Mint? They seem useless since I'm not using Windows anymore. I'm assuming I can delete them and resize my Linux partition using GParted.
The other thing is I have about 30GB free on my Windows partition (I'm not sure exactly how much), would it be better to shrink this partition and make the Linux one bigger?

The reason I don't want to delete my Windows partition now is because I still have some stuff that I haven't backed up, but I'm out of space on my Linux partition so I need to do something for now.

Sorry for my poorly structured post, any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

P.S. this is my first post.

[caf4926]

TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME (1.46GB)

Is likely a boot partition for windows
Don't delete it
But lets see first

Typically, you should manage an install of Mint and manually configure your partitions

Can you open Gparted and take a screen of it, like this
http://paste.opensuse.org/38229544

Also, open a terminal and post the result of

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l

[LionKing34]

Thanks for the reply.

Here is my GParted screenshot: http://i45.tinypic.com/15flsg3.png

And the result of fdisk:

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xecf8b012

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048     3074047     1536000   27  Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2   *     3074048   270504962   133715457+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       292210688   312580095    10184704   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4       270505982   292210687    10852353    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       288288768   292210687     1960960   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       270505984   288288767     8891392   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order


[caf4926]

OK
You could delete sda3
But remember it's the windows recovery blurb, so you should make a full set of windows recovery disks or if you don't care, no worries.

But I'm not 100% sure if it will change all the partition table!

If you could free up more space in windows, by deleting stuff and defrag, then shrink windows, but only half of the total free space, you could then resize the extended partition to take up the freed space, then you will need to alter sda6 inside the extended to use that freed space

[LionKing34]

Okay thanks.
If I do install Windows again it will be Windows 7 or 8 and the computer came with Vista, so the recovery partition would be useless, right?

As for resizing the Windows partition, why only half?

And to be clear, I have resize sda4 before sda6?

Thanks again!

By the way, I was reading some other forum and appartently TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME is a recovery partition, so I'm confused about that, especially since only 500MB is being used.

[caf4926]

Only half because you don't want to blugger up windows do you

Yes, resize sda4 first to get the free space part of the extended

Personally I'd start afresh .... if you want the plan for that I can advise

[LionKing34]

I don't really want to reinstall Linux Mint, so if that's what you mean by start afresh then I'd rather not. But otherwise I'm interested. Plus I will probably mess up at some stage and need to start over.

[caf4926]

This is what I would do if it were me (But I understand it's maybe not what you want)

Backup what you need from Mint and Windows

Clean up unneeded files in windows and defrag

Boot Mint Live CD and use Gparted to delete all partition except sda1 and sda2
Shrink sda2 by half of the free space and apply

You should now have sda1 and sda2 and load of unallocated space
With focus on the unallocated create an extended partition in all that space
The with focus on the extended - create logical partitions as follows
swap = 2xRAM
ext4 15GB (will be for /)
ext4 all the remaining space will be for /home

follow my install guide
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3e0lL ... zVFNGpmd2s

[caf4926]

Otherwise I think I have explained the process of freeing up more space from sda2

My worry is if you delete the HDD Recovery partition, the whole partition table may change and it could make Mint unbootable

Perhaps someone else knows for sure
I don't just have a sandbox in place to test it for you either

[LionKing34]

Thanks for all your help.

I don't think that's exactly what I want, remember I will be getting rid of Windows completely eventually.

These are my final questions (hopefully):
1. Why do I need to keep sda1?
2. If I don't start afresh should I still extend my swap to 4GB (2xRAM)?
3. I forgot.

If you can answer these you're awesome!

Thanks again!

[caf4926]

OK now I really need to know... Do you just want to get rid of windows? Now?
Even if it's future, my recommend is to plan for a backup and completely clean install, otherwise your partition table is just going to be a mess.

1. If you are keeping windows for now, you need it because it probably contains the windows boot code.
If you examine it and sda2, which of them contains the file 'bootmgr' ?
If it's sda2 the you could possibly remove sda1....

2. Not that important

3. I can't read minds...sorry

[LionKing34]

So I kind of got impatient and went and removed sda3 lol.

bootmgr is on sda2, but I will think I wait until I get rid of sda2 before I get rid of sda1. Looks like I will have to move everything 'to the left' so I might as well do them both at once. Here is my new screenshot: http://i46.tinypic.com/7k3p.png

My plan is to finish backing up my Windows stuff and then remove it and make sda6 bigger (or maybe defrag and resize first). Maybe one day I will install Windows again.

I will probably regret not listening to you, but I like to learn things the hard way.

Thanks

[caf4926]

OK
So some improvement there

Let me know if you need any more help

[LionKing34]

Will do.

Thanks for all your help, I didn't expect this on my first post lol.

[caf4926]

Will do.

Thanks for all your help, I didn't expect this on my first post lol.

If you mean help, that's what we do here.

FYI, I only have windows installations for testing multi-boot scenarios - I never actually use windows any more

[jefflawsonn]

According to me, I don't really want to reinstall Linux Mint, so if that's what you mean by start afresh then I'd rather not. But otherwise I'm interested. Plus I will probably mess up at some stage and need to start over.