How to resize 3,7TB ext4 disk?

kxtronic

12/5/23, 8:26 PM

I have an external disk of 3,7TB formatted with 1 partition that occupies the whole disk. I have stored many films and photos on that partition. Now I want to be able to see those films and photos on my LG TV which only accepts FAT32 or NTFS USB devices. So I need to shrink the 3,7TB ext4 partition to say 2TB and create a 1,7TB NTFS or FAT32 partition so that my TV can access the files. --> I don't have another external device of sufficient size to backup the data, delete partitions and create new ones. I need to do it all on this disk alone.

So I ran the following commands:

Trial 1:

sudo resize2fs /dev/sdc 2000G

(first asks to run sudo fdisk /dev/sdc so I did that)

But the disk utility in Ubuntu (gnome-disks) shows that the partition is still 3,7TB and the resize option is greyed out:

Trial 2 I ran this command: sudo parted /dev/sdc resizepart 1 2000G

With the same results as with trial 1.

Now, when I ask for the properties of the partition, it says 2TB:

At the request of mook765, here the output of sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc

Disk /dev/sdc: 3,65 TiB, 4000752599040 bytes, 7813969920 sectors
Disk model: Elements 25A3   
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Any ideas what I'm missing to see this partition as 2TB and have 1,7TB free?

0 + 4

partitioning

gparted

hard-drive

mook765

12/5/23, 8:32 PM

Please add the output of `sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc` to your question.

kxtronic

12/5/23, 9:04 PM

@mook765: I just ran your command and added the output at the end of the ticket

ChanganAuto

12/5/23, 9:08 PM

This is unusual. Disk would normally allow resizing of the partition (unless it has errors). And there's another problem: Assuming you end up doing what you intend successfully the TV may not be abler to "see" to new partition (it happened in older Windows versions sometimes) and/or may not support such large drive.

mook765

12/5/23, 9:35 PM

You don't have any partition on the drive, thus you cannot resize a partition. The 2TB size you see is not the size of a partition but the size of the filesystem which you successfully shrinked. But you can't shrink the drive.You will need to backup the data on the drive on another drive, then you can partition this drive.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How to resize 3,7TB ext4 disk?

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