[ale] GParted & unallocated space

Sun Sep 26 16:15:26 EDT 2010

The procedure as I recall is to
1. defrag disk in winders
2. shrink disk in winders
3. reboot and let winders do some disk checking
4. boot with Linux disk and install to new unallocated space

It used to work to do some disk shrinking in Linux and then let winders do
it's disk check but that seems to be a bad route now for likely proprietary
reasons.

This gets totally bozo'd when the winders install is a restore disk that
eats the drive with a non-standard partition type that is set to autoexpand.
don't know how they do it. The one time I got hit by that I think I dd'ed
the recover partition to a file and made a CD of it, blew away the recovery
partition and recreated it with fdisk and then dd'd the data back over (I
think).

Somewhere in the middle of that I clearly recall screaming loudly about the
waste of time recovery partitions are followed by a string of obscenities.

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Jim Philips <briarpatch.jim at gmail.com>wrote:

> I tried again to see if things would work for me the way they did for you.
> No luck. The newly freed space was listed as "unusable". I could neither
> format it nor set a mount point and if I tried to move forward, the
> installation complained there was no mount point.
>
> I also tried installing FC13. FC13's partitioning program never
> successfully shrank sda2, where Windows resides. It saw all partitions as 0
> megabytes. I'm beginning to feel really screwed here.
>
> On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 1:38 AM, Richard Faulkner <rfaulkner at 34thprs.org>wrote:
>
>>  Yes.  I did install Ubuntu 9.10 to unallocated space without
>> pre-formatting.  I did not attempt to format it in advance...I did that step
>> in the installer by selecting the option to install the OS to the largest
>> unallocated space.  Ubuntu created an extended partition and two logical
>> partitions.  Since the end-user is new to Linux I did a simple single
>> partition installation on ext4 with a swap partition (trying to make it
>> easier for them to learn...will do upgrades in the future).  This is a
>> common way that I install for dual booting systems for new users and have
>> never had major issues with it.  The last build I did this with was last
>> weekend and was an IBM MT-M 8183-CTO SFF desktop system.  Runs like a dream
>> with the only issue being I was having a hard-time getting DVD movies to
>> play in Movie Player.
>>
>> I don't know if there has been changes to the installer on 10.10 and
>> believe the "Install to largest unallocated space" is an option in 10.04.
>> It is an option on the Live CD for 9.10.  I do not have Vista or 7 and
>> really have not kept-up with the fine points of changes since XP...and to
>> tell you the truth I really don't want to know.  I'm more interested in
>> spending my time in *nix than M$ so I cannot tell you what will happen when
>> doing a tandem installation using 7.  I would expect no major issues....
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> *From*: Jim Philips <briarpatch.jim at gmail.com<Jim%20Philips%20%3cbriarpatch.jim at gmail.com%3e>
>> >
>> *To*: rfaulkner at 34thprs.org, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run
>> Linux! <ale at ale.org<Atlanta%20Linux%20Enthusiasts%20-%20Yes%21%20We%20run%20Linux%21%20%3cale at ale.org%3e>
>> >
>> *Subject*: Re: [ale] GParted & unallocated space
>> *Date*: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 21:00:54 -0400
>>
>> Let me get this straight: Are you saying Ubuntu installed to unallocated
>> space without formatting? I couldn't install, because GParted refused to
>> format that space.
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Richard Faulkner <rfaulkner at 34thprs.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I've shrank Windows partitions with GParted successfully -- I just make
>> sure I run chkdsk on M$ to make sure Bill is "happy".  If you can
>> successfully resize the partition and create the appropriate "unallocated
>> space" then I wouldn't worry about formatting that space -- I'd just install
>> Ubuntu to the unallocated space and be done with it.  This is exactly what I
>> did last weekend on a build for a buddy who is dual-booting XP and 9.10 and
>> he loves it!  So much so he can't imagine why in the world anyone would want
>> to use Windows when you have Linux to choose from!!  : )
>>
>> The scenario under-which I did this was:  WD 160GB HDD "System C:" 40GB
>> NTFS; "Storage D:" 40GB NTFS and the remainder as Unallocated Space for
>> Ubuntu 9.10 to install to (which it did flawlessly!)  I had attempted an
>> installation of 64 Studio on this box after installing XP but the whole
>> build got corrupt during the late phases of the install of Studio (boot
>> loader crapped-out).  During that installation the "Storage" drive got
>> repartitioned to 56GB from the original 40GB I specified so I used GParted
>> on the Live CD I have for 9.10 and parred it back to 40GB.  I then nuked the
>> ext3 partitioning from the botched 64 Studio installation, rebooted to M$
>> and ran chkdsk on D: and confirmed all was well.  Then back to my Live CD
>> and did the installation on the Unallocated Space.  Viola!
>>
>> Note:  I did not format the unallocated space prior to Linux
>> installation...I did that during the installation.
>>
>> Fly low, beat the radar and may the wind at your back not be your own....R
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> *From*: Jim Philips <briarpatch.jim at gmail.com<Jim%20Philips%20%3cbriarpatch.jim at gmail.com%3e>
>> >
>> *Reply-to*: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
>> *To*: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org<Atlanta%20Linux%20Enthusiasts%20-%20Yes%21%20We%20run%20Linux%21%20%3cale at ale.org%3e>
>> >
>>
>>
>>  *Subject*: Re: [ale] GParted & unallocated space
>> *Date*: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 12:25:55 -0400
>>
>> I went back to Windows and tried to format the "unallocated space". It
>> wouldn't let me. So, I used the Windows partition tool to regrow the Windows
>> partition to its maximum size and reclaim that space. I then tried to shrink
>> that partition again, thinking I could format the empty space as ntfs. When
>> I went to shrink, Windows complained that tghe partition could not be shrunk
>> because it was corrupted and I needed to run chkdsk to fix the problem. I
>> ran chkdsk twice, but I s'm still not being allowed to shrink that partition
>> in Windows. I could shrink it again in GParted, but I will end up again with
>> "unallocated space" that GParted refuses to format. This is getting to be
>> less fun as it goes along.
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 10:43 AM, justin caratzas <
>> justin.caratzas at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've seen people advocate with either choice for shrinking the windows
>> partition.  I just went through a similar situation where I wanted to
>> keep the Windows installation on a new laptop (Civ 5 ftw) and install
>> Archlinux to occupy half of the hard drive.  Unfortunately for me, the
>> archlinux installer didn't like the partition that windows had setup
>> as a result of the shrinking, something about cylinder boundaries and
>> such.  GParted wasn't working either, giving a similar message when I
>> tried to just give archlinux the large partition to work with.  One
>> challenge was all the partitions that Lenovo had in place (recovery,
>> installation, etc).  What I ended up having to do is manually
>> partition the unallocated space in GParted, and only make the
>> archlinux installer assign mount points, and it seemed fine with that.
>>
>> As far as the space being unformatted, I think I ran into that
>> situation and got around it by formatting the partition as NTFS in
>> windows, and then simply reformatting once GParted was able to see it
>> upon reboot.
>>
>> -- justin
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Damon L. Chesser <damon at damtek.com>
>> wrote:
>> > On Sat, 2010-09-25 at 09:58 -0400, Jim Philips wrote:
>> >> I bought a new laptop and I'm trying to install Ubuntu on it. The firs
>> >> time around, I ended up destroying the Windows installation (which I
>> >> did not want to do). The second time I went in and looked for the
>> >> "side by side" option for installing from the live CD. It wasn't
>> >> there. So, I decided to try GParted. I shrank the nearly 475 gigs
>> >> dedicated to Windows in half. After that, I am left with 235 gigs of
>> >> unallocated space. The Ubuntu installer will neither format nor
>> >> install to that space. Gparted won't format it either. So, from where
>> >> I am now, there is nothing I can do with that space either with the
>> >> Ubuntu installer or GParted. The "Format to" option is just grayed out
>> >> in GParted. I don't remember my last install being this hard.
>> >>
>> >> This is a Windows 7, 64 bit laptop.
>> >
>> > It is desirable to "shrink" the partition from with-in windows.  Right
>> > click on "my computer" select "manage" go down to "disk manager".  I
>> > don't remember the exact thing to do, but from there (perhaps by right
>> > clicking menu on the disk partition?) you can select to change the size
>> > of the partition.  Give that a try.  I have never "seen" the situation
>> > you are describing, however, I have broke windows 7 by NOT using windows
>> > built in disk manager to change the size.
>> >
>> > HTH
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Ale at ale.org
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>> >
>> > --
>> > Damon
>> > damon at damtek.com
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
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>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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