Give some Windows free disk space to Manjaro

Support
1

I recently reduced the Windows disk volume in 128 GB leaving it free to install Manjaro.
I only use Windows for work and after installed Manjaro I started using for everything else and now I need more disk space to confortable use…
I know I can shrink the Windows partition even more since Windows made an automatic defrag when I leaved it idle for 7 hours…
The question is can I add the new unallocated disk space to Manjaro safely? And How?

2

It depends. First, share your partition table.

  • Shrinking of Windoze file system partitions should be best done from within Windoze.
  • GParted would be a suitable GUI tool to adjust your partitions.
  • Depending on yout partition layout some adjustments are needed for the boot process.
1 Like
3

Sorry to ask, how I can share my partition table?
Yes I shrink the Windows partition within Windows…
Yes I use Gparted a lot, I have MiniOS (not the Windows version :face_vomiting:) ToolBox to sometimes do some files recovery to family and friends (I’m their technician apparently but nobody warned me tho) and I used to it.

4 
sudo fdisk -l
1 Like
5

Here’s the output of my partition table:

sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465,76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA MQ01ABF0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 17DE7CF6-0AC7-4F4B-BC4C-B67BE1AA65F8

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    206847    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/sda2     206848    239615     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3     239616 707245345 707005730 337,1G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4  975681536 976771071   1089536   532M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5  707245346 975681535 268436190   128G Linux filesystem

Partition 5 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Disk /dev/sdb: 114,6 GiB, 123048296448 bytes, 240328704 sectors
Disk model: Cruzer Blade    
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3868a89c

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1          32 240328703 240328672 114,6G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/zram0: 6,54 GiB, 7017070592 bytes, 1713152 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
6

This looks like when you shrink your Windoze partition you gain space in front of your Linux partition. There are many ways to use it in your Linux partition. I can only provide the way I would do it:

  • I would backup the whole Linux partition to another disk (of course you need to have one) by Clonezilla.
  • Note the UUID.
  • Then I would delete the Linux partition on /dev/sda5.
  • Recopy the backup partition and align it to start at the end of the Windoze partition.
  • Next stept would be to extend the copied partition using GParted to take benefit of the space at the end of the partition.
  • Finally, boot into a live ISO, manjaro-chroot into your system and restore the bootloader.
  • If the UUID is no longer the one noted upfront, then you need to change your /etc/fstab entry for “/” accordingly if you mount it using the UUID identification.
  • Reboot.
4 Likes
7

Nevermind, I shrinked Windows partition 128GB with it’s disk manager and I’m gonna format it to ext4 and use for Timeshift snapshots and store big files but thank you so much for the info!
Hoping this post helps many people with the same idea in the future!

8

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.