How to merge unallocated partition with primary linux partition

Gush@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 46 points –

I recently removed windows 10 from my pc, how can i merge the unallocated space with /dev/nvme0n1p5? There's the boot partition between so i can't just adjust one of them and merge with the other using the resize/move button. How can i do it?

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Just move the boot to the left and merge

how can i do that?

Right click, resize/move.

To add on to this, don't click the handles on the boot block, click and drag the entire boot block itself. You'll be able to move the boot partition to the left, then you can extend your main partition.

i'll try this as soon as i have the time to flash the live iso. Btw i think i already tried it many times but it didn't work. I've even watched tutorials. It just does nothing

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I moved the boot parition successfully but i'm afrad that it's gonna break my system somehow. Do i have to reinstall the grub? How? And by the way now that the two partitions are close together if i try to resize/move the "new Partition #1" i can't expand it nor move it anywhere, same thing with /dev/nvme0n1p5

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Yeah i already know that

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It shouldn't do "nothing". Once you press apply, it's possible you get error messages, but it shouldn't say it's complete and do nothing. That would be a big bug!

So, I've had it not work before, usually for odd reasons. One thing to try is to delete the other partition, then apply, then try to move it.

Resize/move is finicky though.

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Boot on GParted ISO. Moving your boot may bork grub, so you would need to chroot and update it

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This might be possible by booting to a live disk and using gparted etc.

Don't attempt to do anything while you're using the Linux partition. That's like trying to work on a car while it's running.

Yeah, it's not like gparted lets me to that by the way. If i want to make changes i need to boot into a live environment

Most filesystems only support extending themselves with space at the end of their partition. However in this case since the unallocated space is larger than the actual partition you should be able to just copy the existing partition to the start of the disk, then extend the partition and grow the filesystem. I haven't done this before and always take backups, but you should be able to do something like:

  1. Make a new boot partition.
  2. Copy the raw boot partition data from the old partition to the new one.
  3. Delete the old boot partition.
  4. Create a new root partition.
  5. Copy the root partition data to the new partition.
  6. Delete the old root partition.
  7. Use the empty space to extend the root partition.
  8. Extend the root file system to take up the whole partition (resize2fs).

Since you are never overwriting data in any step this should be fairly safe. If you are cautious you should be able to boot up the system between every step to make sure that it is still working and you haven't lost data before overwriting the old partitions.

Some gotchas are checking how your filesystems are discovered/mounted. You may need to update your boot configuration to reference the new partition ID or make sure that you use the same labels (depending on how you are referencing the root partition).

Backup and reinstall. Fiddling with partitions is a very easy way to brick a system.

Nah i won't backup anything. I lost my soul trying to rice my ubuntu, no way i'm doing that

If I may ask, why not just format it normally and mount it to a directory in your system? Why does it need to be merged ?

If the outcome will be the same then good. How can i do that?

Just create a new partition, then in your home folder or somewhere else idk, create a folder and choose that as mount point.

If you're worried about messing anything up the safest option is to simply format the unused space and set it's mount point to some directory of your choosing.

Another option I think would be to clone your boot partition to the beginning of the unallocated space, clone your root partition to the unallocated space after that, delete the old partitions, grow your root partition, and then reinstall and reconfigure your boot loader. All this should be done from a portable Linux install.

you can't easily. you fucked up putting it there

Maybe you could by creating a new boot partition and then cloning the current one into that before deleting the original one and reconfiguring grub?

You could leave it unallocated and have your drive usably last for a very very long time. Just consider it a 256 gig drive.

yeah i know but i want to reclaim that unallocated space 'cause why not