<SOLVED> cant work out why im unable to resize disk partitions???

[smooth_buddha]

I have a dual booted macbook with 300G partition for the macosx, 250G partition for linux mint, 8g swap for linux, and another empty partition of around 400G. (1TB HDD total)

For some reason using cfdisk it will not let me resize my partition ( as i hardly use mac osx i wanted to make my linux partition the largest on my machine)

Because i made the partition within the macosx operating system , i also tried to resize my linux partition using the disk utility device in sierra mac osx but that would also not allow me to resize the linux partition but however it would allow me to resize the mac osx partition and to also create new partitions but im unable to alter my linux mint partition, it seem frozen at 250G for some reason.

I created the 400G empty partiton in an attempt to hope that would allow me resize my linux partition and possibly add the 400G to the already existing 250G but had no luck!

I could get around this maybe by delteing linux mint delteing partiion in macosx then creating new larger partition and re installing linux mint but id rather not go that route unless i really have to. My hard drive is hdd and unfortunately is not ssd, although im not sure if this really makes a difference.

 

[captain-sensible]

i'm not running on all 4 cylinders yet ; i can't work out which os your booting from but i would have thought if you boot from Mint you can resize over partition but not Mint since your running from it. I've booted from knoppix to resize and even then it said "will try to resize" If there is data splattered across whole partition then it has to consolidate data before it can shrink it.

 

[smooth_buddha]

i boot up from linux mint mint (mint is default boot when i turn laptop on). I could wipe the whole partitio and sesize it in macosx disk utility and start all over again. but id rather not even bother going into macosx, id rather try solve it through linux. Does it make a differene if one uses a different partiioning tool- i tried to use cfdisk but does gparted or fisk make any difference. I prefurred cfdisk it seemed easier to use with its menus

 

[captain-sensible]

yes but when you are booting from & USING a partition it tends to limit what you can do to it;so for instance when try to resize my swap ,i can't unless i select swap off in gparted.
When booting from say knoppix you can manage partitions and have them mounted and unmounted. You can't run an os to my knowledge from an unmounted partition where root linux is installed . is that the problem ?

 

[smooth_buddha]

yeah i think thats the problem

 

[wizardfromoz]

g'day buddha, captain

buddha, if you have your original live media, you can use gparted from there, or else burn a gparted live stick via this link

https://gparted.org/livecd.php

gparted has an inbuilt safety feature that disallows you from manipulating partitions in a current session on the affected partition/drive, makes sense.

once or if you come to have two or more linux distros, you can use the gparted in one to manipulate the other/s.

wiz

 

[smooth_buddha]

g'day buddha, captain

buddha, if you have your original live media, you can use gparted from there, or else burn a gparted live stick via this link

https://gparted.org/livecd.php

gparted has an inbuilt safety feature that disallows you from manipulating partitions in a current session on the affected partition/drive, makes sense.

once or if you come to have two or more linux distros, you can use the gparted in one to manipulate the other/s.

wiz

thanks wizard, yeah this may help! i could install another linux distro on the other partition then expand the partition within one of the distros to make the other larger???? i will give this a shot!