Shrinking Ubuntu partition and Extending Windows Partition help?

[georgeos]

So I dual booted Ubuntu with Windows 7 as I usually do with a fresh hard drive, but this time I gave Windows a little less space than I should have, only 40gb, and ubuntu 560, but now I don't have enough room for my wine incompatible windows apps. A while back I was going to do something similar but I was warned about data loss, or the bootloader getting messed up, so I just reistalled both OSs seeing as it was a fresh hard drive, but i've been using this set up for around 2 months now, and all data is on. So my question is, what is the safest way to shrink the Ubuntu partition and extend the Win7 one.

Thanks

GH

[oz]

Hello and welcome!

The Parted Magic LiveCD comes with gparted and that should easily handle shrinking/expanding your partitions, depending on the current layout. Keep in mind that you need unallocated space adjacent to the partition that you will be expanding. You mentioned the word "safest", so the best way to stay safe is to have a backup of all important data just in case anything should go wrong.

[georgeos]

Thanks for your reply Oz

I booted into Gparted, and I was able to shrink my Ubuntu partition (able, as in GParted let me, I didn't click apply) Once it was shrunk however, I was unable to expand my Windows partition, I booted into windows, with the same problem, and EASEUS wasn't able to touch the Ubuntu partition.

Any ideas?

[oz]

If Linux is on an extended partition, you may have to move or resize that as well in order to get some unallocated space adjacent to the Windows partition that is to be expanded. You can check the following HowTo for the steps (the extended partition section is down toward the bottom of the howto at #3):

GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - RESIZING

[georgeos]

Exactly, it's on an extended partition, So i shrink the whole partition, and I have the free unallocated space, my question is, how do I extend that into my windows partition. See section 3 of the GParted documentation, then the first picture, assume the top partition is my Windows partition, and the bottom is unallocated space made by shrinking Ubuntu, I want to extend that space into my Windows partition.

[oz]

It's a separate process to expand the Windows partition so that it includes the unallocated space. The option to do that should be in the gparted menu, but I'm not at my Linux box so that I can check it at the moment. If you are unable to find it, I'll post back once I'm back to my Linux machines.

[georgeos]

(Sorry if it's a tiny bit off topic, the Ubuntu section seemed most appropriate)

So I booted into GParted, and shrunk my Ubuntu partition by 100gb today, in the hopes that I would be able to extend my Windows partition. However GParted won't let me extend this unallocated space into my Windows partition. I booted into Windows, and still no luck, I tried EASEUS partition manager, which didn't work. So I shrunk my current Windows partition (within windows) by about 1gig to check if I could re extend it. And what I found was that the new unallocated space seemed to be separate from the 100gb unallocated space, they wouldn't merge. But I was able to re extend that 1gig back to the Windows partition.
So does any one have any idea how I can extend this 100gb of unallocated space into my windows partition?

[georgeos]

(Sorry if it's a tiny bit off topic, the Ubuntu section seemed most appropriate)

So I booted into GParted, and shrunk my Ubuntu partition by 100gb today, in the hopes that I would be able to extend my Windows partition. However GParted won't let me extend this unallocated space into my Windows partition. I booted into Windows, and still no luck, I tried EASEUS partition manager, which didn't work. So I shrunk my current Windows partition (within windows) by about 1gig to check if I could re extend it. And what I found was that the new unallocated space seemed to be separate from the 100gb unallocated space, they wouldn't merge. But I was able to re extend that 1gig back to the Windows partition.
So does any one have any idea how I can extend this 100gb of unallocated space into my windows partition?

Okay I fixed it, basically I re expanded my Ubuntu Extended partition and then shrunk it from BEHIND having the effect as basically moving the partition behind the unallocated space, and therefore putting the free space next to the windows partition. So I was therefore able to extend, which is what gparted is doing now, let's hope I can still boot afterwards.

GH - UK

[oz]

therefore putting the free space next to the windows partition. So I was therefore able to extend, which is what gparted is doing now, let's hope I can still boot afterwards.

Right... the unallocated space must be adjacent to the partition that you want to expand, as stated above in post #2?

Hope it all worked out well and you booted successfully.

[georgeos]

Seems to take a long time, still have 5 hours to go, gonna be a long night waiting for it