Arch Linux

Anurag_Rao

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2021-03-27

Posts: 17

Expanding linux partition

Hi all,
I used to run Manjaro before switching to Arch a few months ago. I usually partition my disks and use about 200GB for Linux. However, this was not enough for me when I ran Manjaro. I looked up the internet and after a bit of searching, I discovered I need to use a live linux system with GParted to move and expand my partitions. I did that and Manjaro was rendered un-bootable. I had cloud backups of my essential files, so I completely wiped the drive and installed Arch Linux and windows on it. I have partitioned my drive to give Linux 250GB. I wanted to try another Linux Distro, so I shrunk the windows partition and installed it on a 115GB Volume. I want to get rid of the 115GB volume and use that space for expanding my Linux Partition - giving more space for my Arch install. What is the right way to do this without rendering my system un-bootable? I've attached my GParted screenshot for reference:
image

Thanks in advance!

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,334

Re: Expanding linux partition

Since we don't know what the definition of "un-bootable" was: There's never a guarantee when mucking about with low level partition handling, make sure you have backups . Assuming you don't actually break something important the worst that should be able to happen is that your bootloader config gets invalid in which case you'd need to reconfigure/reinstall your boot loader and potentially a few adjustments in your fstab.

What you'd do here is remove your swap and the 115 GB partition, then move the root partition to the start of the newly freed up space and then resize the root partition as you want and recreate the swap partition. Assuming you are using proper (PART)UUIDs in all your configs referencing the root partition then the root partition should be found as normal, but you'll likely have new identifiers for swap for which you'd have to recreate the relevant fstab entry.

Last edited by V1del (2021-06-07 12:05:20)

captain_sensible

Member

Registered: 2021-05-29

Posts: 46

Re: Expanding linux partition

I think the moderator already said what i'm saying V1del i guess mine is just verbose-

ok
couple of things to use gParted on partitions they have to be unmounted; when you use a liveOS from a usb ,you will be running an OS from the usb and the partitons on your main pc would have been unmounted (unless you deliberately mounted them) so that was fine.

When you used gParted to stretch/move your partitions it woulkd have warned you that those operations could result in your pc OS
not booting , and it seems it was correct maybe in your case. I did it a couple of weeks back, i had a dual boot of Slackware current and Arch Vanilla on a 60 gig drive. As in the "sparks" song there wasn't enough room for the both of them. I deleted the slackware partition, which was Immediately next to the Arch partition, and stretched Arch into the space space- I got away with it!

lets see if i can work out your partitions:

your main windows looks like its on  nvme0n1p3  , p7 looks like it was going to be an efi partition but doesn't seem to have a mount point.

I wanted to try another Linux Distro, so I shrunk the windows partition and installed it on a 115GB Volume.

the only partition i can see with 115 GB (nvme..p8) has a file extention of ext4 , so i don't that is windows. So did you after posting try to install on that partitio n?

i'm guessing Arch is installed on nmve...6

in theory if nothing you want is on nmve...8 and you got rid of the swap on nmve..5 then you might be able to stretch nmve ..6 to the left (empty space) using gparted

However you would have to maybe shrink nmve...6 and put a swap on a partition (visually )far right
Its a risk since messing around might give you boot error. or simply since the windows reserve looks like its on  nvme ...4; delete
partitions 5,6,7 & 8 and start again with a clean install. IF thats single  500gig drive you have , you only need one efi partition which is
nvme..1. I also only have 100mb of efi partiton and i know thats good for a few  entries so both Windows and Arch can use it.

Arch if yo udo a clean install should hopfully pick up if say you use grub2 as a boot loader and add Windows to the grub menu

Last edited by captain_sensible (2021-06-07 14:24:55)