Adding space by growing a partition (Should know)
When a partition is running out of free space it can be useful to add more space to the partition. Adding space is possible if unallocated space is available, or can be made available, immediately adjacent to the partition. In this recipe we cover the steps to add space to a partition.
Getting ready
Before performing this task, we highly recommend that you backup your data. This task involves moving the end of a partition boundary which is a moderate risk activity.
Note that in order to perform actions on a partition, the partition must be unmounted. In the case of an extended partition, all of the logical partitions must be unmounted or otherwise inactive.
If there is no unallocated space immediately adjacent to the partition you wish to grow, then you might need to shrink, move, or delete other partitions to free up adjacent unallocated space.
The location of the unallocated space is important. To add space to a primary partition the unallocated space must be outside of the extended partition. To add space to a logical partition the unallocated space must be within the extended partition. Hence you might need to resize the extended partition, placing the unallocated space outside or inside the extended partition.
How to do it...
Select the partition to add space to.
Choose the Partition | Resize/Move menu option and a Resize/Move window is displayed:
Click on the right-hand side of the partition and drag it to the right.
Click on Resize/Move to queue the grow operation. The queued grow operation is shown in the operations pane.
Choose the Edit | Apply All Operations menu option to apply the queued operations to disk.
Click on Apply to apply operations to disk.
Click on Close to close the apply operations to disk window.
How it works...
In the above steps, we expanded the right-hand side of the partition, also known as the end of the partition. This instructs GParted to resize (grow) the partition.
In this example, we left many options at the default values. If you wish to maintain compatibility with old operating systems, such as DOS, you should set the Align to drop down list to the Cylinder setting. If you require more precise partition sizing, you can enter values or use the arrows in the for New size, or Free space following spin boxes.
There's more...
If you resize a partition containing an NTFS file system, you should reboot into Windows twice. This permits Windows to perform file system consistency checks.
Moving the left-hand side of a partition
If the left-hand side of the partition, also known as the beginning of the partition, is moved then the operation is no longer simply a partition resize. Two steps are required due to the metadata contained at the beginning of the file system. One operation is needed to move the partition, and another to grow the partition.
Moving the start of a partition involves extra considerations that are discussed earlier in the Moving a partition recipe.
