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Help with partitioning drives


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So I have had my hard drive dual booting between Windows 7 and Ubuntu for a long time. I love Ubuntu but I needed Windows 7 to help run my Apple TV 2 (needed iTunes). Anyway I finally hacked the ATV2 and installed XBMC on there, which means I am basically ready to completely cut the Windows cord on my desktop.

Problem I am having is that I want to repartition my drives and am having issues with doing so. Here is my partition setup:

sba1 = Boot menu (for dual booting win and linux)
sba2 = Windows Partition
sba3 = Ubuntu
sba4 = Swap (for Ubuntu)
sba5 = I call this storage. I was using this as a go between between the two drives and it stores all my videos, pictures, and music.

So I have 1.5 TB hard drive (only hard drive I have) and 1.25 TB is my 'storage' drive (sba5). I basically just had my OS's on each drive and the applications they are running. The problem is that I am not having luck getting my ATV2 to see that storage drive when running Ubuntu. My idea was to cut sba5 drive to about 500 gb (or completely out doesn't matter) and expand my Ubuntu drive (sba3) to have close to a TB (basically whatever is left from the others).

I hope I don't get confusing here, but since sba5 is currently filled to about a TB, I figured to shrink that drive as much as I could, then expand the Ubuntu drive and start moving what I need to there. I wouldhave to do this a few times to get things moved over, and I know this is time consuming but I'm cheap and don't plan on getting any more memory right now. So when I tried to shrink sba5 (with gparted on ubuntu live cd) it just sits there acting like its working. Problem is I left if over night one time and 8 hours later it didn't move and was stuck in the same position. Doing some research, I think this is because it is at the very end of my drive and they don't want to have free space at that part of the hard drive.

I have a bunch of important home videos and pictures on there so I am scared I am going to mess things up if I start force partitioning and lose some of our home videos, my wife will kill me.

So any ideas of how I can shrink sba5 and give the extra memory to sba3?

If my explanation is crap let me know and I will try to make sense out of it. Yes I know, if I spend $100 on another TB or 2 of memory my problem is solved. But I doubt that is going to happen for a while.

Thanks for any assistance...
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Re-partitioning a drive with live data is fraught with peril and unless you have a full backup of all of your files and are willing to blow the whole thing away and start over if it goes poorly [b]I recommend that you do not do it[/b]. Especially since the process you are describing involves multiple attempts.

You do have a full backup of all of your files, yes?

That said you are on the right track, but I would recommend using the [url="http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php"]GParted Live CD[/url] as opposed to the GParted included with Ubuntu as it is a bit more robust\isn't deprecated.

I've also had good luck with [url="http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=downloads"]PartedMagic[/url].

Again, I need to stress that you shouldn't try this unless you have a full backup of all of your files, and it doesn't sound like you do...
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Yeah I know... I do have them backed up.. or at least most of them. Thanks for the reminder, I will make sure I have everything backed up. I have about 500 GB's of movies, tv shows etc that I care about for convience but I can get them back... Home videos, not so much... Going to make sure all of them are completely backed up now.
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