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What does "Free space preceding" and "Free space following" mean? I checked GParted manual but could not find an answer.

Ron
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Tosh
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1 Answers1

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Free space preceding is used if you are moving the partition to make space for a new partition to the left of the current partition.

Free space following is used to create space for new partition that follows (right side of) the current partition.

For eg: In the following, I've re-sized my current partition to create 501MB space for a new partition on left and another for a 323MB partition on right of my current partition.

enter image description here

You have to be careful when moving the start sector of partition because if you move the Linux partition containing /boot, or if you move the Windows system partition C: your computer might not boot.

Ron
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  • Thanks @Ron. So "free space" is the same as "unallocated space"? – Tosh Aug 02 '15 at 05:53
  • For most purpose yes. If you create 300MB "free space following" you will get 300MB "unallocated" space that you can format to whatever you want. – Ron Aug 02 '15 at 06:02
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    Note that moving the start point of any partition is likely to be riskier and more time-consuming than moving its end point. The reason is that partition data structures are defined relative to the start of the partition, so moving the start point involves moving those data structures, which in turn means moving a lot more data. This take time and increases the risk of an error because of a bug, power failure, etc. – Rod Smith Aug 02 '15 at 19:43
  • @Ron Sorry for the delay - I have been away for a while. Thanks again. – Tosh Nov 26 '15 at 00:06