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I very often adjust partition sizes and move them, so wondered if I could launch GParted from my hard drive. According to this link on the GParted site:

GParted Live on Hard Disk

It appears that I can.

How large of a partition would I have to create? I don't see the file size shown for the live image on the page.

I know I could use a thumb drive or CD, but this would be for convenience as I tend to forget where I put the last thumb drive I used, or not be able to find another one each time I need one...

Michael
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    I like to have a lot of ISO in my /ISO partition. But you can just put it into /boot or anywhere you like. Issue in configuration of grub loopmount is almost always correct partition & then path. Size is large enough for ISO, not extracted files. See also ISO Booting with Grub 2 from Hard drive - drs305 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot Examples - you may copy & edit for your path & ISO version https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot/Examples – oldfred Nov 03 '16 at 18:26
  • For some reason I didn't even consider using the same boot partition, but I guess there's no reason it wouldn't work – Michael Nov 03 '16 at 21:02
  • If you mess about with partitions that much, I would suggest you use LVM instead; you can move partitions around even if they are in use... though you normally don't have to since they don't have to be contiguous. – psusi Nov 03 '16 at 22:19
  • Between the GParted Live link and your links @oldfred, I can get this working! Do you want to answer rather than comment and I'll accept your response as the answer? – Michael Nov 04 '16 at 14:16
  • I forgot that I already have similar here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/388382/multi-partition-multi-os-bootable-usb/388484#388484 That was more for flash drive, but applies to any ISO boot using grub2's loopmount. – oldfred Nov 04 '16 at 14:34
  • @oldfred: convert that to an answer and drop me a line! You need upvotes for all the work you do! :P – Fabby Nov 04 '16 at 22:15
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    Possible duplicate of How to boot from non-Ubuntu live ISO images like Fedora or CentOS? – David Foerster Nov 05 '16 at 09:16

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With grub2, you can use its loopmount command to directly boot ISO anywhere. Issues often are in setting correct drive & partition for grub to find ISO. Even with my sdb drive, sometimes having flash drive plugged in changed drive to hd2, not the hd1 it should be. So then I have to manually edit entries.

I have had ISO in their own partition, in /boot as another folder or just about anywhere.

Lots of details & second link has many examples of ISO booting.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot/Examples

Older example of flash drive with BIOS boot configuration:

Multi-partition multi OS bootable USB

This also works with UEFI, if you boot into grub2 using UEFI to then install in UEFI mode.

Be sure to use the toram boot parameter. The question on unmounting does not seem to work and only using toram does.

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oldfred
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