Member Avatar for isamalhassan

hi every one, im using ubuntu 12.04, and i have installed windows 7 and ubuntu12.04 on my laptob, and because im news i could not give the good size for my ubuntu home and boot directory, as from Gpartioned application apears
ext4 /home and ext4 /boot are 3.72 GB each, and i have about 200 GB unallocated how i can join those 200 to my home directory? thank you very much

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Short summary and context (building on suggestions from and ): the safest path is to work from an offline environment, confirm the exact partition layout and filesystem type, make a verified backup of /home, then expand the partition and finally grow the ext4 filesystem. The advice from about filesystem-aware tools and about using a live environment is correct; the steps below fill in the practical checks and exact commands that are commonly missed.

Pre-checks and a checklist: create a full copy of important data to an external drive (rsync or a disk image). Verify whether /home is on LVM or encrypted and whether the unallocated space is adjacent to the /home partition:

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT
sudo blkid
sudo parted -l

If TYPE shows lvm or FSTYPE is crypto_LUKS, the resize path is different and must use LVM or cryptsetup-aware steps.

Safe sequence (offline/live environment): boot a live USB (so partitions are not mounted), turn off swap (sudo swapoff -a), then either use GParted to drag/resize or adjust the partition table with parted/fdisk. After changing the partition boundaries, run a filesystem check and expand the filesystem to fill the partition:

sudo e2fsck -f /dev/sdXN
sudo resize2fs /dev/sdXN

If /home is on LVM, extend the logical volume first (lvextend) then run resize2fs on the LV device.

Troubleshooting and cautions: moving non‑adjacent partitions can be slow and risky—expect hours for hundreds of GB. Partition-number changes or recreated partitions can alter UUIDs; confirm /etc/fstab matches blkid output after reboot. If boot breaks, a live chroot and reinstall of GRUB will usually restore the bootloader. Emphasis: a verified backup is essential because partition moves carry real data-loss risk.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

If the /home and the unallocated space are contiguous, you can use fdisk to resize the /home partition, and then use resize2fs to increase the file system size. Do bear in mind that you will need to be sure you are not using any files on that partition when you do (or bad things may occur - but not necessarily).

Member Avatar for Xlphos

If you installed this from a live CD/DVD you may also be able to resize the partitions using gparted from booting off the live CD/DVD. You should also be able to move partitions around if they are not contiguous. Files shouldn't be in use as you are using the live disc.

let us know how it goes.

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