How To Expand Root Partition?

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bertradio
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How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by bertradio »

A couple of years ago, after trying out LM on my laptop, I decided to put it on my desktop as a dual boot with Win10. Unfortunately I did not allocate enough space on my SSD for LM and would now like to expand the space for LM. A screenshot of my partitions in gparted is here https://www.dropbox.com/s/lvf1mpg56p3xb ... 5.jpg?dl=0. As you can see, I shrank the Win10 paritition to 314gb -- and would like to shrink it more. I would like some advice on what I think are my options. I have backups of both my root and home partitions.

1. My first idea was to move the LM root partition into the unallocated space, expand it and then move the /home parition next to it and expand that. So I booted from a USB and loaded gparted. But when I tried to move my root partition I got a message warning me that LM might not boot. So I exited gparted and abandoned this -- for the moment.

2. Could I create a new root partition in the unallocated space, rename my current root partition and move all the files to the new one? I imagine I would have to do something for grub to recognize the new root partition. If I could do this, then I could move and expand the /home partition. And finally delete the old root partition.

3. At some point I would want to install LM 20. Could I install it in the allocated space and have it show up on grub? This would give me a triple boot situation. Then I could get it working properly and remove the LM 19 installation. Would that work? At that point I could also move and expand /home.

4. Try to move the current LM root as in option 1 above and if it doesn't boot properly remove the partition, reinstall 19.3 in a larger partition, and restore my Timeshift backup.

5. Something else?

Since there is the potential of trashing both LM and Win10 I am trying to be very careful.

Any sage advice would be apprecited.

Thanks
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spamegg
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Re: How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by spamegg »

I added your picture to make it easier for others to make suggestions
PDnhXY2B.jpeg
My advice would be to buy one more hard drive. You have very little space.
bertradio
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Re: How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by bertradio »

Thanks. I couldn't figure out how to put the picture in the post.

I do have a 2nd hard drive and I do have a lot of space. The 2nd drive has my Win10 data. As you can see I can still shrink the Win10 partition quite a bit. I hardly use Win10. So I should have enough space on the SSD. 50gb for my LM root and 100gb or so for data would fit my needs -- all of which is possible if I can move the partitions around and expand.
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JerryF
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Re: How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by JerryF »

bertradio wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 2:14 pm Thanks. I couldn't figure out how to put the picture in the post.

I do have a 2nd hard drive and I do have a lot of space. The 2nd drive has my Win10 data. As you can see I can still shrink the Win10 partition quite a bit. I hardly use Win10. So I should have enough space on the SSD. 50gb for my LM root and 100gb or so for data would fit my needs -- all of which is possible if I can move the partitions around and expand.
My dual boot is very similar to yours. I've done the following procedure:

You probably should use the Disk Management tool to shrink your Windows partition first. Maybe shrink it to 100 GB. That will leave you about 25 GB free in Windows to use.

Then, using Gparted from a live Mint USB/DVD, resize the left part of the Extended partition to take up the new space and then move/resize your / partition to the leftmost area to whatever size you want and do the same for /home.

FYI: This will take time. You state that it's an SDD so that's helpful in being faster. Don't expect it to be done within an hour.

If by chance you have a boot/grub issue, you can boot your live Mint and use Boot Repair.

Needless to say (but I'm going to anyway :wink: ) backup any important files.
bertradio
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Re: How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by bertradio »

When I tried to move the root partition I got an message saying my computer might not boot, so I canceled. Do I need to be concerned about this? Or if I have a problem will boot repair fix it?
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JerryF
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Re: How To Expand Root Partition?

Post by JerryF »

Yes, Boot Repair does a very good job of fixing boot problems.
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