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gparted won't resize partiton on cloned system disk UBUNTU 11.10

(6 posts)
  • Started 7 months ago by Shellback3
  • Latest reply from BobJam
  • Topic Viewed 586 times

Shellback3
Posts: 1

I have a speciality computer that has an 8 GB flash memory card for the system disk, /dev/sda, and a 256 GB removable SSD, /media/sdb, which will be used for data. It has no optical drive and I have no USB optical drive. We underestimated the amount of space needed for the system disk so I get warnings when I log on and have had as little as 30 MB free space. For a short term solution I backed up the data on data disk and used dd to clone the system disk sda to sdb and then rebooted.

I have gparted installed so I unmounted sdb and attempted to enlarge sdb1 to 15 GB (which should fit into a new 16 GB flash drive) for the system and swap space. I intended to put the unused space into a new partition. gparted won't let me change the size of sdb1.

I thought that the proper course of action to be able to boot into sdb would be to enlarge the partition, change the UUID somehow, edit /etc/fstab and perhaps some other files and I'd be good to go. It appears that I'm wrong. There's a nice tutorial on gparted on this forum but it sheds no light on my problem.

TIA
Nate

Posted 7 months ago #
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vistamike
vistamike
Posts: 10945

I'm pretty sure that what you are asking is impossible the way you are set up at the moment.

One of our members Bobjam may be able to point you in the right direction.

Posted 7 months ago #
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nosparks
Posts: 148

Is this a problem of Linux or of the flash drive?

Maybe try partitioning the flash drive under Windows.
Perhaps using the Home Edition of EaseUS Partition Master.

Posted 7 months ago #
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BobJam
BobJam
Posts: 1052

OK . . . lemme' see if I understand your problem.

sdb1 will mount but you cannot change the size via Gparted ON THE OS? What command are you using then to unmount the disk?

What does GParted show as the formatted file system on sdb1?

Have you tried GParted via LiveCD?

I'm not familiar with SSD media and how Ubuntu deals with it . . . that may be an issue.

Tell me what the outputs of these two commands are:

sudo fdisk -l -u

and

sudo parted -l

(Those are not the number one, but rather lower case "L's")

Posted 7 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

I think your problem is that you were trying to manipulate the active OS partition from a program running under this OS. That does not work. Do what BobJam suggested and use a live CD. Other than GParted you can also use the bootable CD of Partition Wizard.

And I don't think that the SSD has anything to do with it. SSDs behave like any old Sata disk.

Posted 7 months ago #
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BobJam
BobJam
Posts: 1052

@whs,

I thought there were perhaps some nuanced differences between SSD's and mechanical HDD's that might come into play.

In any case, I don't know much about SSD's except what I've read, so that's why I put out the caution. Your knowledge probably trumps mine.

Yes, trying to use GParted from the OS is likely the problem, though I understood the OP to say he unmounted the partition he wanted to use GParted on. GParted, no matter where you try to use it from, is often cranky.

Which reminds me . . . @Shellback3, you should backup your valuable data (preferably to removable media) BEFORE any GParted tries, no matter where you try it from. If GParted gets cranky and goes south on you, which DOES happen, you could lose all your data on the HDD.

Posted 7 months ago #
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