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ottopiloto avatar Ubuntu

Messy dual boot partitions / Please help to clean them up

md flag
ottopiloto

Please excuse my mistakes both in English and in Ubuntu terminology.

I recently did a reinstallation of my computer. I'm running now Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS on a computer with a 1TB Hard disk and 512GB SSD disk. I have no access to a USB live boot nor to a CD, so I did the formatting through Unetbootin or a similar program (can't remember now).

At the moment of creating the partitions, there was an automatic division and I accepted it, also making some changes I found on a guide. I knew I was not doing it right, but I thought I could change it later once I could dive online.

Now it's obvious that I'm lacking space on my root partition and probably need to delete some non-sense partitions on my SSD. The issue is that I still cannot boot from a USB or CD.

Here are my questions:

  1. Can somebody advise on the best way to clean up and use my partitions? I'm looking to maintain an Ubuntu/Windows dual boot, but I use Windows very occasionally only for one software. Should I create any partition on the Hard disk as well? Seems like it's not getting any use now?
  2. Is there a way to do this running from the actual boot, for example using "growpart"?

Thank you

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UPDATE enter image description here

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oldfred avatar
cn flag
oldfred
You cannot edit/modify mounted partitions, so really need to get USB flash drive boot of Ubuntu live installer which has gparted or a gparted ISO made as bootable flash drive. You may need to change UEFI settings to have UEFI Secure boot off and full USB support on or allow USB boot settings. Varies by vendors on what UEFI settings are available.
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PonJar avatar Ubuntu
in flag
PonJar

From the information you have provided it’s not clear which, if any, partitions can be deleted but since they are small they are not worth messing with. Your root partition is left of a NTFS partition. In this situation manipulation of that partition in Linux can break the Windows boot process. If I were you I would:

  1. Backup your data on partition 6 and 7
  2. Unmount partition 6
  3. Using GParted shrink partition 6 and move it as far as possible to the right. The amount you shrink by will end up in your root partition after the following steps.
  4. Using Windows disk management move partition 5 as far as possible to the right, next to partition 6
  5. Resize partition 7. Normally you would boot into a live session to do this. You may be able to do this with the Ubuntu installation media you used recently. If not one of the following processes will enable you to do this but they are not beginner level.

How to modify partitions without a live USB/CD

How can I resize an ext root partition at runtime?

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

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ottopiloto avatar
md flag
ottopiloto
Hi PonJar I could solve it using Unetbooting and following your instructions. Thank you for taking the time!
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ottopiloto avatar
md flag
ottopiloto
Hi again,I followed these steps but then the system wouldn't recognize the Hard disk anymore. Now everything is installed on the SSD and the Hard disk has disappeared from everywhere (even gparted). I've been all day trying to solve this problem (by changing the SATA to ahci, and then my computer collapsed -probably because I did some wrong modification- and I had to install Ubuntu from scratch. I've lost my Windows partition now and the Hard disk is not showing still. Do you have an idea of what could I do to recover the HDD? Thanks
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PonJar avatar
in flag
PonJar
Sorry to hear you are having problems. It’s generally best to focus on one problem at a time. Can you post the output of lsblk. That should list all the devices and partitions on your system as at now. You may be able to recover Windows with boot repair if its partitions are still there.
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ottopiloto avatar
md flag
ottopiloto
Added to the main post. Thanks for dedicating your time to help me!
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PonJar avatar
in flag
PonJar
Well your Windows partitions are gone. If you have lost data you can use photorec to recover individual files. It would be best todo that from a live environment. It’s not a quick process. Your HDD appears to be mounted normally. Can you access it by following the mount path?
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ottopiloto avatar
md flag
ottopiloto
I can't access it and it does not show on my disks. Please check a new picture on the main post – Note that you may have been looking at a Toshiba external disk that I had plugged in, but not the actual hard disk from the computer
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PonJar avatar
in flag
PonJar
I’m a bit confused. Your original question mentions an SSD and an HDD. The disks app shows an SSD (sda) with several partitions and a usb HDD with a single NTFS partition. Your last comment speaks of an external disk and another hard disk. The external usb HDD was in the original pictures and is still present in the lsblk output but not the latest picture. What is the “actual hard disk from the computer”? Are you talking about one of the partitions on the SSD? Can you add the contents of /etc/fstab and check if you have the driver for NTFS on your new installation (ntfs-3g)
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ottopiloto avatar
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ottopiloto
Ok :D Looks like I'm the one who was confused about my computer's configuration. For some reason I thought my computer (https://es.msi.com/Content-Creation/PS42-8RX/Specification) had both an SSD and an HDD. Just a silly mistake that has complicated my life for no reason the last two days, I guess. I think everything is clear now. My computer just has an SSD and it's fully working with Ubuntu now with a clean partition. Thank you and sorry!!
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