resize partition on external drive

[Diwin]

Computer hardware is not my bag. I accidentally installed ubuntu on external F drive, thinking it was C drive, unaware that ubuntu installs on drive with most available space. Installation involved partitioning the drive in about half. So, before I install it on C drive, I want to restore my F drive. I deleted partition using XP Disk Management tool and tried to use gParted on Parted Magic live boot cd to resize remaining partition that contains my data. But it doesn't seem able to expand the good partition to reclaim the 'unallocated' space.

How do I accomplish this? Must I backup and reformat??? (say no.)

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Lets check partition structure of your harddisk. Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD, open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[Diwin]

Thanks for your help.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9726 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9dc96e9e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 5 9725 78083932+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6dc22c2e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 60922 489355933+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

[Diwin]

Did I do this right??? Could someone give me a pointer? I cannot install Ubuntu on my C drive until I restore my F drive. Only then will I remove backed up files from the C drive.

[Diwin]

OK. I got another harddrive to transfer my data files to that I had previously backed up onto the C-drive. So I got ubuntu half running now. But how do I restore my F-drive?

[yancek]

All you have on your computer are windows partitions. One Dell utility partition and one ntfs partition on your 80GB drive and just on ntfs on the 1 terabyte drive? since all you have are windows partitions why don't you use some windows utility to partition your drive?

[Diwin]

Thanks.

Honestly, I don't know what I am doing. I don't really even understand what a partition is, really.

ubuntu partitioned the F-drive as part of the install. GParted was recommended as a way to resize a partition---are you saying it can't? What is a Windows partition utility?

[yancek]

Windows systems usually take up the whole drive as a default and therefore partition and drive are seen as interchangeable. A partition is a 'part' of a physical drive. You can have 15+ partitions on one physical drive. GParted and Parted Magic can resize and partition drives. Which drive did you think you installed Ubuntu to? Your fdisk output shows two drives, one 80GB the other 1TB. Both show windows only filesystems. Did you install Ubuntu as a file within your windows install (wubi) or did you try to install it on a separate partition? If the latter, it didn't happen!

I haven't used windows for years but I assume your Disk Management tool should be able to do whatever it is you want.

[Diwin]

I used the partitioning step in the ubuntu live CD installation process to create a partition on the F-drive. I did not realize it defaulted to the F-drive---I thought it had defaulted to the C-drive. So I Naiively continued. Only when I was done did I see it had partitioned and installed on the Terabyte F-drive.

I then used Windows Disk Management tool and right-clicked and deleted the partition with linux in it, leaving the partition with my data files alone.

So which program should I use to restore that F-drive to its full size???

[yancek]

You should be able to use Parted Magic or GParted to 'resize' your partition.