How to move unlocated space out of the extended partition

Question

I got his partition scheme:

I want to give the unlocated space to /dev/sda1 (my system partition) from /dev/sda2 my extended partition.

To reach that, I think i must move out the unlocated space out of /dev/sda2, right?

Unfortunately GParted does not offer the option to shrink /dev/sda2 :(

Thanks!

Answer 1

There's not much you can do. Here's why:

This diagram shows physical layout of partitions on your disk. I have added arrows pointing to /dev/sda1 and unallocated space. You can't merge them because they are not side by side - partitions have to be continuous.

You could merge them into one logical partition if you had LVM set up. I have never used it myself, but I guess enabling it would involve loosing data on sda1 and possibly on other partitions too.

Answer 2

I don't quite agree with @gronostaj's answer. What you are asking is quite possible to do (although it involves risk of data corruption, so make backups before proceeding).

In my method, I will bring the unallocated space to the left-most (top-most) section of my Extended Partition. After that is done, I will resize my Extended partition to leave out the unallocated space contiguous to sda1.

My method goes something like this:

• First, boot from a separate GParted/PartedMagic CD/USB.
• Then, using gparted:
  • Resize sda6 to include all of your Unallocated Space.
  • Resize sda6 again to leave out your unallocated space to the left of sda6.
  • Then, resize swap to include unallocated space in that, and then resize it again to leave out the unallocated space to the left of swap.
  • You will now finally have your unallocated space to the top-most/left-most section of your extended partition.
  • Now, resize your extended partition to leave out the unallocated space.
  • The left out unallocated space will now be contiguous to sda1. Huzzah!!