Partitions in (Solved)

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gillsman

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Hi all,
I recently tried out a new distro (Linux lite) by dual booting alongside Mint, after a while I decided it wasn't what I wanted so I deleted the partition & used grub customizer to check the boot details were ok however when I rebooted there was a problem & my computer would not boot so I used a live cd to run boot-repair & afterwards all was back to normal, I wonder though if my partitions are as they should be, i have included a picture of what I'm seeing in gparted.
Thank you.

Screenshot from 2022-02-04 16-35-03.png
 


From what you have pictured you no longer should need the /dev/sda3 fat32 partition it must have been left over from linux lite's boot sector. You could delete it and reformat it to ext4 and use it for extra storage.
 
you should be able to but make a backup of any important stuff off computer. Just in case.
 
I have tried to to resize sda5 into sda3 (which is now formatted to EXT4) but despite it showing the new (higher) size the resize button is greyed out so I assume it isn't possible or am I doing something wrong ?
 
Read This....it is from gparted manual.....click on Help, then Contents, then Working with Partitions, then Advanced Partition Actions, then Resizing a Partition.

ignore the part where i have drawn a line through the wording...it does not apply to your case.

Resizing a Partition​

Resizing and moving a partition can be performed by a single gparted operation.
To resize a partition:
  1. Select a partition. See Selecting a Partition.
    Unmounted or inactive partitions enable the most resize options.
    Support is available for online resize of some mounted or otherwise active partitions. However this support is often limited to grow only.
  2. Choose: Partition ▸ Resize/Move. The application displays the Resize/Move /path-to-partition dialog.
  3. Adjust the size of the partition. See Specifying Partition Size and Location.
    If you do not want the start of an existing partition to move, then do not change the free space preceding value. If the partition is mounted or otherwise active, then you will not be able to change the free space preceding value.
  4. Specify the alignment of the partition. See Specifying Partition Alignment.
  5. Click Resize/Move. The application displays the resize/move partition operation in the Pending Operations pane.
  6. Examine the operation that was added to the Pending Operations pane.
    If the operation involves a move step, then consider the following:
    • A move step might take a long time to complete.
    • If the partition is an operating system boot partition, then a move step might cause the operating system to fail to boot.

    If you are not prepared to wait or to fix potential operating system boot problems, then you might want to undo the operation. See Undoing Last Operation.

To grow or move a partition, unallocated space must be available adjacent to the partition.
If you are growing a logical partition, then the unallocated space must be within the extended partition.
If you are growing a primary partition, then the unallocated space must not be within the extended partition.
You can move unallocated space to be inside or outside of the extended partition by resizing the extended partition boundaries.
A LUKS encrypted partition and the file system within can only be resized when the encryption mapping is open.
To improve the ability to shrink NTFS partitions, you might consider one or more of the following:
  • Defragment the file system.
    Booting into Safe Mode with the commercial operating system that uses NTFS can improve the ability to defragment the file system. To enter Safe Mode press F8 while your computer is booting the operating system.
  • Check the partition for errors with the following command:
    C:> chkdsk /f /r
    Remember to reboot back into the commercial operating system that uses NTFS to allow the chkdsk command to execute.
  • Temporarily disable the paging file. The paging file occupies a fixed location in the partition that the defragmentation process is unable to move.
  • Temporarily move large files to another partition or disk device. Large files are defined as greater than a few hundred Megabytes (MB).
  • Ensure a proper shut down of the commercial operating system that uses NTFS before you resize the NTFS partition
  • Leave at least 10 percent unused space in the NTFS partition. If you shrink the partition too much, then the commercial operating system might have difficulty functioning properly.
  • Reboot twice into the commercial operating system that uses NTFS after shrinking the NTFS partition.



​

 
gillsman said:
Thank you for your reply, I will read it when I can, for now I'm off to look after my grand sons as my daughter is about to give birth to first grand daughter.
Click to expand...
Congratulations :)
 
Hope everything turns out AOK !

Congratulations to everyone concerned !
 
@gillsman - important stuff first - congratulations (from another Granddad)

Next - before you follow anything from the above from my friends, I would like to be sure of something.

Can you please provide the output from the command

Code: 
ls /sys/firmware/efi/

and also the output from

Code: 
cat /etc/fstab

I will explain in more detail, once I have that information.

On the observation you made here

gillsman said:
I have tried to to resize sda5 into sda3 (which is now formatted to EXT4) but despite it showing the new (higher) size the resize button is greyed out so I assume it isn't possible or am I doing something wrong ?
Click to expand...

Take a look at your screenshot of GParted and you will see 3 identical icons resembling an old-fashioned push button phoneset base station, between the columns headed Partition and Filesystem. On other distros this may look like a padlock or a key, or other.

This means those partitions are in use and/or mounted, and GParted, as a safety feature, will not allow you to perform major operations on those (such as resizing) unless you unmount them, which you cannot do from within your Distro (well, you can with /boot/efi but that's a well-kept secret for good reasons).

In order to eliminate or manipulate /dev/sda5 you would have to be using GParted from one of the following venues:
  • a USB/CD/DVD of GParted Live
  • a Live USB/DVD such as the one you used to install, it has GParted on it, or
  • another Linux on the same computer, such as when you had LInux Lite on the rig
But please hold off on those thoughts until you provide the output I am asking for and I may have relatively easy alternatives.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
wizardfromoz said:
@gillsman - important stuff first - congratulations (from another Granddad)

Next - before you follow anything from the above from my friends, I would like to be sure of something.

Can you please provide the output from the command

Code: 
ls /sys/firmware/efi/

and also the output from

Code: 
cat /etc/fstab

I will explain in more detail, once I have that information.

On the observation you made here



Take a look at your screenshot of GParted and you will see 3 identical icons resembling an old-fashioned push button phoneset base station, between the columns headed Partition and Filesystem. On other distros this may look like a padlock or a key, or other.

This means those partitions are in use and/or mounted, and GParted, as a safety feature, will not allow you to perform major operations on those (such as resizing) unless you unmount them, which you cannot do from within your Distro (well, you can with /boot/efi but that's a well-kept secret for good reasons).

In order to eliminate or manipulate /dev/sda5 you would have to be using GParted from one of the following venues:
  • a USB/CD/DVD of GParted Live
  • a Live USB/DVD such as the one you used to install, it has GParted on it, or
  • another Linux on the same computer, such as when you had LInux Lite on the rig
But please hold off on those thoughts until you provide the output I am asking for and I may have relatively easy alternatives.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
Click to expand...
Wizardfromoz,
Thanks for your congrats, my daughter is still not out of hospital yet so I'm still tasked with looking after two little ones.
Once back home I will post the results of the commands for you.

I thank you again for your help.
 
In your own time mate - enjoy them while they're small :)

Chris
 
wizardfromoz said:
In your own time mate - enjoy them while they're small :)

Chris
Click to expand...
OK Chris I am now back from looking after two toddlers & a new baby, I'm a bit shattered but I have done as you asked & the results are ~

rick@rick-LIFEBOOK-AH530-HD6:~$ ls /sys/firmware/efi/
ls: cannot access '/sys/firmware/efi/': No such file or directory
rick@rick-LIFEBOOK-AH530-HD6:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=cde5eeb2-bf76-40cf-8fcb-95aed13653ef / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=3178-6337 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0
 
Thanks for that :)

In order to make any use of that (now) EXT4 512 MB, you would need to follow what Brian put from GParted Help above

Condobloke said:
You can move unallocated space to be inside or outside of the extended partition by resizing the extended partition boundaries.
Click to expand...

But personally, I would not bother, it is only half a gig on a 500 gig drive. Plenty of space.

To do so, as /dev/sda2 (Extended) is mounted, you would need to unmount it from an external source medium such as Mint Live USB stick or GParted Live USB stick, and then proceed further with GParted from that stick.

I can tell you more about that if you really want to go that way.

I, if I just wanted to be neater, would be simply to click to highlight the line with /dev/sda3 on it, then right-click and choose Delete. You then move to nearly the menu, and the furthest-right arrow icon just south-east of Help will allow you to accept and implement the changes. Go ahead.

It should allow you to do that because /dev/sda3 is not mounted (no icon).

End result is that you will have unallocated space at the end of your drive, of 513.02 MB.

See what you think.

Chris
 
wizardfromoz said:
Thanks for that :)

In order to make any use of that (now) EXT4 512 MB, you would need to follow what Brian put from GParted Help above



But personally, I would not bother, it is only half a gig on a 500 gig drive. Plenty of space.

To do so, as /dev/sda2 (Extended) is mounted, you would need to unmount it from an external source medium such as Mint Live USB stick or GParted Live USB stick, and then proceed further with GParted from that stick.

I can tell you more about that if you really want to go that way.

I, if I just wanted to be neater, would be simply to click to highlight the line with /dev/sda3 on it, then right-click and choose Delete. You then move to nearly the menu, and the furthest-right arrow icon just south-east of Help will allow you to accept and implement the changes. Go ahead.

It should allow you to do that because /dev/sda3 is not mounted (no icon).

End result is that you will have unallocated space at the end of your drive, of 513.02 MB.

See what you think.

Chris
Click to expand...
Hi Chris
Firstly thanks for your support, I think you're right that it's a lot of work just to regain 512mb so I'm going to delete it as you suggest, just one question though is this small partition as a result of something I did wrong or just a by product of removing an OS from a dual boot system.
Regards
 
Rick, it may be a legacy of putting on the Linux Lite - if it was not instructed to or pointed at the Mint ESP (EFI System Partitition) to share with (they can) it may have created its own and that was not accounted for with the deletion of LL.

Cheers

Gotta fly and cook tea here in Oz

Avagudweegend
 
wizardfromoz said:
Rick, it may be a legacy of putting on the Linux Lite - if it was not instructed to or pointed at the Mint ESP (EFI System Partitition) to share with (they can) it may have created its own and that was not accounted for with the deletion of LL.

Cheers

Gotta fly and cook tea here in Oz

Avagudweegend
Click to expand...
Enjoy your tea,:)
 
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