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I inherited a dual-boot laptop with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04.4. I want to steal from the Windows partition to increase the size of the Ubuntu / partition. I ran Gparted to survey the diskscape:

Partitions on hard disk

  1. Partition sda3 is Windows.

  2. But what is sda4? It is ntfs so presumably Windows made it. How can I mount it to see what's on it in case it is critical? It would be good to get rid of it if possible.

  3. Partition sda5 is Ubuntu.

  4. Partition sda6 is also ntfs, but what is it for? Can I gobble it up for Ubuntu?

    Any hints for aggregating all the loose partitions lying around for Ubuntu's use will make me leap with joy and gratitude.

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Hedley Finger
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  • you just mount them normally with the mount command. /dev/sda6 is the Windows recovery partition and can be deleted – phuclv Mar 28 '20 at 10:03
  • "What are all these Windows partitions?" seems like a Windows support question more than an Ubuntu support question. – user535733 Mar 28 '20 at 16:17
  • Windows usually has a couple of small partitions for reasons that are not obvious. In your case they are about half a GB each so very small in the scheme of things. Most of your spare space is on sda3 so to make a meaningful difference you should look at reducing the size of sda3, moving sda4, and increasing sda5. Make sure you backup anything you cannot afford to lose, use Windows Disk Management on the Windows partitions and a live Linux environment and GParted for sda5 – PonJar Mar 28 '20 at 17:59
  • Standard Windows partitions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?redirectedfrom=MSDN but often vendor recovery and/or a full Windows recovery partition exist at beginning & end of drive. Windows now has new small recovery partition right after main partition. Not sure if then shrinking Windows with Windows tools will move that recovery partition also. You may want to create separte /home or /mnt/data partition. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving – oldfred Mar 28 '20 at 19:40
  • user535733 It's also an Ubuntu question, since I am trying to make more space for /dev/sda5. By the way, I have successfully got the necessary space for Ubuntu by following the answer and being very careful with GParted. – Hedley Finger May 01 '20 at 05:17

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As always, if you have any data that needs to be saved, make a backup of the entire drive using a program such as clonezilla before re-partitioning. The safest way to resize the windows partition is with Windows' Disk Management program. However, Windows likes to spread out data and has "unmovable" files like the pagefile and system restore files which often limits the amount of space available to shrink the volume, even when there is a quite a bit more "free" space in that partition. See this post which describes how to free up more space on the volume. You will benefit from defragmenting the windows volume beforehand as well as turning off hibernation. Windows is messy with partitions and loves to gobble the whole disk with partition, so your sda4 and sda6, as the flags suggest, are diagnostic and recovery tools for Windows. Unfortunately, they've sandwiched your Linux partition, which is nearly full. If you shrink the Windows system partition, you will be adding unallocated space at the beginning of your Linux partition. The key point is that the unallocated space is contiguous with your Linux partition, which it will be. Once you've freed the unallocated space, you can reboot to your Unbuntu live USB and use GParted to expand the unallocated space into your Linux volume. You can find some discussions on the considerations for adding to the volume here and here. I hope this helps get you started.

Scott S
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  • Thanks to my AskUbuntu family for helping out. I will get back to you all after trying your suggestions. What fast first responders you are! – Hedley Finger Mar 29 '20 at 04:07