blank partition I can't change

[irish666]

After a disaster trying to use Plex I had to completely reformat my hard drive. As I booted from a USB it offered to add LVM with a note that it made it easier to manage the drive. Easier for who I wonder? I installed Mint 18.3 on a 1TB drive, allowing it to erase the drive and start fresh. That is when it offered the LVM. Once the drive was formatted and Mint 18 up and running I discovered that it had formatted a partition of 955146004 size using 1% for something, and I can not add anything else to it. Can someone tell me how to make that drive usable?

Here is the output of the df command with the drive in question highlighted:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev 2765164 0 2765164 0% /dev
tmpfs 557744 8628 549116 2% /run

/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root 955146004 7271560 899332748 1% /

tmpfs 2788708 23244 2765464 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 2788708 0 2788708 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1 482922 69000 388988 16% /boot
cgmfs 100 0 100 0% /run/cgmanager/fs
tmpfs 557744 84 557660 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1 1953512000 1309747844 643764156 68% /media/irish/SimpleDrive

[jglen490]

I can't say that I've ever seen that recommendation from the installer. I do know that the usual process is to display the install options such as take over the whole drive, install alongside, and something else - but maybe I just missed an LVM option. So I'm not sure how to use LVM, or even if the claim about ease of management is necessarily applicable.

Would it be fair to assume that your Linux Mint platform will be used primarily for personal purposes? Or will you be running a business on it? Basically, what is your use case for trying/using Linux?

On the other hand someone with LVM experience may drop by and fix it all for you!

[WharfRat]

The default setup for the LVM installation is to use the entire HDD less a small partition for /boot.

And yes LVM is supposed to be easier managing storage, but not that simple and can be quite involved.

As an example https://www.rootusers.com/lvm-resize-ho ... partition/

[JerryF]

Unfortunately, you'll need to do a reinstall. LVM is a pain. You can't use Gparted on an LVM partitioned disk.

[ricardogroetaers]

After a disaster trying to use Plex I had to completely reformat my hard drive. As I booted from a USB it offered to add LVM with a note that it made it easier to manage the drive. Easier for who I wonder?

When you're dealing with something unknown is necessary precaution. You should get information about it. There is the risk of acting the same as the bumbling Hunter. Makes the shot in hunting and hit the shot at the dog.

The first time I installed Linux, I did copy the Windows partition to the second hard drive and turned it off.

Is the second hard drive that I keep important data. Systems and programs can be reinstalled but losing data is irreparable.

I do not know absolutely nothing of lvm.

If you already has reformatted your hard drive there is nothing to lose. Just format it again.