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I started installing Ubuntu by watching a video tutorial about doing a disk partition installation, for that, inside Windows' 7 own disk partitioning tool. After a defrag I cut 100GB that I pretended to use on my Ubuntu installation for a little try out, now, while installing, I never really chose where I wanted Ubuntu to be installed, so I guess it just made a partition by itself of the minimum that the installation tells you it needs.

How can I now give the other 92 GB I had left apart only for that task?

Here's what my partitions look like now.

screenshot of Windows Disk Management

Here's a df:

screenshot of df

And here's the GParted tool un ubuntu:

screenshot of GParted

Melebius
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favourites
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  • What do you want to do with that 9gb (According to the picture it is less than 8 gb)? – Muzaffar Dec 25 '14 at 00:39
  • where is your linux partisition?? – Meow Dec 25 '14 at 02:19
  • Would you try installing http://www.ext2fsd.com/ and http://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html so that we can properly read and detect those partitions so that we can tell what they are exactly? I'm going to guess that the second 8 gb partition is linux-swap and should be left alone. – Aaron Franke Dec 25 '14 at 04:55
  • by 9x i meant nineety something; i'm gonna check on that linux-swap thing and comeback, thank you; i want to make sure i'm using the 100gb i had left alone for ubuntu on that precisely; thank you; – favourites Dec 25 '14 at 17:31
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    Can you exchange those images for one from gparted? gparted understands both windows and linux filesystems so will show a better overall idea. What I do NOT understand is why your windows does not see those 92Gb from the Ubuntu install. It should show it as "unknown". Could it be you used a WUBI installer?? – Rinzwind Dec 27 '14 at 22:21
  • Ok. I don't know whether you meant 92Gb or 9Gb and what your intentions for that partition are nevertheless I'd advise you first format that partition to a mountable one and then reformat it to your desired file format. then you can rephrase your question. Thanx – Zuko Dec 29 '14 at 08:56
  • so you made a 100 gig partition on your windows hard drive correct? So you then installed Ubuntu correct? If so ubuntu installed to that 100 gig partition and in doing so created a linux swap partition. So basically ubuntu should be installed on the 92 gigs and you have a 7 gig linux swap partition that ubuntu can already use.Swap space is important, and should be left, ubuntu will use it automatically. Or do you wish to delete something? – damien Dec 29 '14 at 09:05

4 Answers4

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1st option: See if you can use gparted to delete the 92 GB partition, given that nothing is in it. Then expand the Ubuntu partition into the empty space. Moving files in gparted can be risky for your ubuntu install, but if you haven't customized it out yet, then it should be no big risk because it does not take long to reinstall. You might not be able to do all of this from within Ubuntu. If that is the case you could just burn gparted to a disk and boot from that. Be very careful not to delete the wrong partition though.

2nd option: From Windows, delete both the extra partition and Ubuntu partition or merge the two. Then reinstall Ubuntu. Only this time select "Do something else." I believe it also says 'Advanced.' Then it will take you to a menu with the partitions. At that point you can select the correct partition (or create it) and format it to install there.

3rd option: You may want to use the 92 GB partition as a Data partition between Windows and Ubuntu. If that is the case, then you could just keep it and make it mount at startup. You would need to format it so Windows can access it (maybe NTFS). You would add this command to startup items in Ubuntu: /usr/bin/udisks --mount /dev/sda7 (Replace '7' with partition number.)

Through all of this just make sure you know which partition is which. I am not certain what these partitions are because I just see what Windows says (7.93 GB partition and 92.06 GB partition).

jbrock
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  • are you absolutely sure there's nothing on the 92gb partition? – favourites Dec 27 '14 at 23:15
  • I am not. That is why I mentioned "given that nothing is in it." Gparted can tell you whether it has data on it. I know Windows can't read an ext4 partition. So I believe it will say 100% empty even if something is there. – jbrock Dec 27 '14 at 23:21
  • i understand now, english is not my mother language, thank you. – favourites Dec 27 '14 at 23:24
  • Puede mandarme un mensaje en español si es más fácil explicar algo. – jbrock Dec 27 '14 at 23:28
  • subí una foto de la aplicación gparted ¿qué dice ahí? ¿están los 92GB desocupados? yo no la entiendo. – favourites Dec 28 '14 at 17:35
  • According to the picture, the 92 gig partition is the root partition (/) and it has an ext4 file system so this is Ubuntu. Not sure what the 100g extended partition is – geoffmcc Dec 28 '14 at 22:13
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Here is a good article on what has happened here with the partitioning.
https://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.1/Installation_Guide/s2-partitions-overview-extended-x86.html

If you are happy with having 85 GB free in your Ubuntu partition, then I would just leave it as is.

If you would like more space in your Ubuntu partition, then you would want to use a program like Defraggler to defragment Windows. You will want to use Defraggler because Windows puts some unmovable files at the end of its partition, and Defraggler will move them. Then you would be able to shrink Windows, sda2, to a smaller size. (Only do this from within Windows.) Then by using gparted you would expand sda3 into the empty space.

jbrock
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EDIT: This stands here only for educational purposes.

Ubuntu does not allow messing with mounted partitions, therefore you have three options:

  1. (Preferred one) Use 91GB partition for your /home, ie, user files. This way, when you need to upgrade Ubuntu, this partition will not be touched, ie, you will not have to copy data from backup back to hard assuming everything went right.
    1. Boot into Ubuntu
    2. Open terminal by pressing ctr+alt+T
    3. Gain administrative rights by typing sudo -s; it will ask for your password; there will be no indication that you are typing it - just type and press Enter
    4. Type lsblk
    5. Find your 91GB partition; Check if it's mounted; if MOUNTPOINT column is empty, skip next step
    6. Unmount that partition by typing umount /dev/sda[number from the first column]
    7. Change mount point of 91GB partition
      • Get UUID for 91GB partition blkid; check for same /dev/sdaX as you used for umount
      • Backup before messing with system file: cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab_backup
      • Type gedit /etc/fstab
      • There should be line starting with UUID=[UUID from blkid]; change column /something to /home
      • Save file
      • Only read following if there was no line with correct UUID
      • At the end of the file add line #mount home partition; # marks everything following it as a comment, so you can use whatever
      • Add another line UUID=[UUID from blkid] /home ext4 nodev,nosuid 0 2
      • Save file
    8. Reboot
    9. You should have 91GB for your home directory; check from file manager
  2. Deleting 91GB partition and expanding main Ubuntu partition from live session
    1. Boot into Ubuntu live session
    2. Open Gparted by pressing super (Windows) key, typing gparted and pressing enter;
    3. Select your 91GB partition
    4. Press Delete
    5. Select your Ubuntu partition
    6. From menu bar Partition -> Resize/Move
    7. Triple check the operations that will be executed (they are shown at the bottom)
    8. Check if the operations are such: delete [91GB] partition; expand [Ubuntu] partition; Edit -> Clear all operations if not
    9. Apply changes by pressing ctrl+Enter
    10. Reboot into normal Ubuntu session
  3. Deleting 91GB partition in Windows and expand Ubuntu partition. I am not sure to do this as windows does not understand ext4 formatting.

Check
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35807/how-to-harmonize-your-dual-boot-setup-for-windows-and-ubuntu/
and
http://www.howtogeek.com/116742/how-to-create-a-separate-home-partition-after-installing-ubuntu/
for reference.

julka
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  • i dont understand how this answers the question – damien Dec 29 '14 at 08:57
  • The question was how to use 92GB partition, or so I understood. I gave them to Linux, cause 8.6GB is too little for testing. – julka Dec 29 '14 at 13:58
  • Mounting 92GB at /home gives you 92GB for personal files, while expanding main Ubuntu partition gives more space for system files; however, personal files must be copied somewhere during OS upgrade. – julka Dec 29 '14 at 14:04
  • ubuntu is on the 92 Gig and uses the 8 Gig swap.whilst I see advantages creating a separate home partition I don't believe it's what is being asked.I believe the swap has confused the op and the question needs improvement for clarification – damien Dec 30 '14 at 13:38
  • Yes, my bad for not zooming in images. I'll still leave this tut. – julka Jan 02 '15 at 08:02
  • @julka You can easiely expand ext3/4 partitions, which are mounted. So ubuntu allowes to mess around with mounted partitions – LittleByBlue Jan 03 '15 at 17:25
  • @LittleByBlue Expanding yes. Deleting or shrinking, no. – julka Jan 04 '15 at 17:30
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Maybe I missed something, but according to your screencap your root partition is 91gigs. If you created it to be 100gigs,some of it gets used elsewhere.

I made a 100 gig partition for my Ubuntu and it only 90 something when all said and done.

If you don't mind reinstall Ubuntu, go back to Windows and delete all the non Windows/recovery partitions. Once the partitions are deleted it will show as unallocated space. Do NOT format. Leave unallocated.

Reboot to install Ubuntu, choose option to install along side Windows. Ubuntu will install to the unallocated space.

But again, if your partition was made to be 100 gigs, your only really going to get 90 something out of it

Edit: I see what I missed. I thought that second partition of 7g was a recover partition.

Remove the two partitions show they show as unallocated space and then like I said before reboot and install.

You could also try to merge the two partitions using GParted, but you will need to do it from a live cd/USB environment so none of the portions are mounted.... Now that I think about it, I would try that first

Edit: Took a closer look:

This is an odd one, as now that I look again, Ubuntu is on sda5 as its mount point is / and it has an ext4 file system. This can be confirmed by your 

 df-h

As it shows /dev/sda5 has a mount mount of / and it is 91 gigs

So your Windows appears to be sda1 (system reserved) sda2 is your actual c: drive. /dev/sda5 is your Ubuntu /dev/sda6 is your swap.

The 100 gig partition is /dev/sda3 and is extended. I'm starting to think there is nothing here. Im not sure if it is safe to delete that partition as /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 seems to be a sub partition of the extended partition.

You may need to back things up, redo your partition table as I previously suggested and start again. Sorry.

geoffmcc
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