How to expand /[root] with adjacent (preceding) free space

[cjspizz]

About 4 months ago, I setup a Win 10/Mint 19 dual-boot and haven't booted into Windows since! Unfortunately, my 30GB root partition is filling up (65% used), so I'd like to expand it.

As you can see below, I carved out another 19GB of free space between /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sdc2 that is in front of the root partition. Here's a visual, in case it helps:



Here's my full system partitioning:

/dev/sda [WDC SATA II, 1TB, GPT Partitioning]

• /dev/sda1 (Microsoft reserved partition, 134MB)

• /dev/sda2 (V:Misc, 950GB)

• /dev/sda3 (/media/cjspizz/Mint Snapshots, 50GB)

/dev/sdb [Kingston SSD, 120GB, MBR Partitioning]

• /dev/sdb1 (System Reserved, 367MB) [boot]

• /dev/sdb2 (C:Windows 10, 119GB)

• /dev/sdb3 (Win Recovery, 472MB)

• free space (1.5MB)

/dev/sdc [Seagate SATA III 2TB, MBR Partitioning]

• /dev/sdc1 (S:Data, 1.8TB)

• free space (19GB)

• /dev/sdc2 (/[root], 31GB)

• /dev/sdc3 (swap, 8.2GB)

• /dev/sdc4 (/home, 176GB)

I booted into a Linux Mint Live USB stick to use GParted to slide the left edge of /dev/sdc2 leftward over the new adjacent free space. When I clicked to apply the changes, I got the following warning:

Moving a partition might cause your operating system to fail to boot. You have queued an operation to move the start sector of partition /dev/sdc2. Failure to boot is most likely to occur if you move the GNU/Linux partition containing /boot, or if you move the Windows system partition C:.

I cancelled the operation.

Then I slid the whole /dev/sdc2 partition left, so it would be in front of the adjacent free space. Then slid the right edge of /dev/sdc2 rightward over the adjacent free space but got the same warning.

I'm thinking I can ignore the warning, because the boot sector (and grub2) are in /dev/sdb1. But I didn't want to risk it.

I need help figuring out how to get this done (or whether it's even possible). Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks!

[gm10]

If you're not booting from the drive then it's no problem, just go ahead.

[redlined]

to echo gm10, doing stuff on sdc shouldn't raise concern over that warning, unless you are planning to mess with:

/dev/sda [WDC SATA II, 1TB, GPT Partitioning]
/dev/sda1 (Microsoft reserved partition, 134MB)

or

/dev/sdb [Kingston SSD, 120GB, MBR Partitioning]
/dev/sdb1 (System Reserved, 367MB) [boot]

Disclaimer, ima newb, and as I read your post, those are your concern spaces, because they contain bootloader instructions (and are the only ones you list that appear to be such) blkid&lsusb may provide some better representation of what you got going on though (if it's all mounted)

if your description is accurate and complete, then I'd do what you propose to do. If you are not sure what all may boot from exactly where then be very cautious about moving forward with that plan... otherwise use usb LM live session and you can even monkey with the other (non-boot) partitions on sda and sdb if desired.