Products > Computers

Repartition Hard Drive with Dual OS and Not Losing Data

(1/17) > >>

bostonman:
I have an old laptop with dual operating systems, XP and Ubuntu. Due to updates, Ubuntu is near the end of its partition size.

I'd like to increase the partition size, but don't want to risk losing either OS.

A few places online explained how to perform this, but I'm uncertain whether they were accurate. Does anyone know an easy way to resize the partition for Ubuntu without damaging either OS?

IanB:
To increase a partition size, there needs to be some empty space to increase into. If the disk is already fully occupied, then you will need to decrease another partition to make room. And to do that you may need to defragment it first, in order to move all the empty space to the end before you shrink it.

To do these operations it is best to use a trusted and reliable tool. I have used the tools built into Windows 7 or 10 for this, but I have no experience of XP. There are of course third party tools available--"Partition Magic" comes to mind, but it is not the only one.

If you have any fear of data loss, then it would be a good idea to make an image backup first, and make sure you have backed up all your important data as well.

That said, I have done this kind of operation from time to time and it has gone smoothly.

bostonman:

--- Quote ---To increase a partition size, there needs to be some empty space to increase into.
--- End quote ---

Yes, correct. I didn't mention that part of it, but I plan to shrink the XP section a bit. I mainly use this laptop for random stuff, so I can afford to lost size on XP.

BradC:
Grab a copy of systemrescuecd and fire up gparted. It can resize and move as required, although moving a partition is a *slow* process.

bostonman:
Is systemrescuecd part of Gparted or are they to be used together?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page