Partitioning tools

You can also run GParted from its own standalone bootable install on CD or USB from www.gparted.org/livecd.php. Make sure you pick the right architecture, which is typically i586 for older, 32-bit computers, and amd64 for newer 64-bit machines with UEFI rather than legacy BIOS. Users of 32-bit can also experiment with the i686-PAE build if they find the i586 build is a bit sluggish.

The step-by-step guide ( seeright) reveals how to shrink your main partition before creating a second primary partition alongside it using GParted from the Ubuntu live CD. If you’d rather create your new partition or partitions inside the extended partition, then the procedure is slightly different. First, resize the system partition as outlined in the walkthrough. Once done, you need to extend the small extended partition that contains your swap file to take up all the remaining free space.

This can’t be done while the swap file is in use, so rightclick the swap partition in GParted and choose ‘Swap off’. Once done, you’ll be able to right-click the extended partition and choose Resize/Move. Type 0 (zero) into the ‘Free space preceding’ box and click ‘Resize/Move’ to quickly allocate all available space to the partition. You can now partition the free space as you wish without worrying about running out of available partitions – just make sure you calculate how much space each partition is likely to need and assign it accordingly, and don’t forget to click the ‘Apply’ button when you’re done.

The tools we’ve mentioned are pretty smart on the whole, but potentially dangerous task, which is why taking a full system backup before you begin is essential. If you do run into problems, check out the GParted help pages at http:// gparted.org/help.php. You’ll find handy links to an FAQ with, among other things, a guide to fixing problems with Grub.

You may run into problems when attempting to mount new partitions into key folders such as your home folder. If Linux throws up an error on startup, press m to manually recover from it, then type sudo nano /etc/fstab to examine the file and check there are no errors preventing the partition from mounting correctly. If you can’t find any problems, delete the line, save the file and restart before investigating.