Jul232012

How can I partition a drive with Ubuntu on it without formatting it?

sandeepsingh rawat asks:

I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 in my external hard drive without a partition. I boot it through the external drive. My OS and data is in the same single partition, so how can I create a partition on the drive without formatting it?


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3 Answers -

0 votes

Bruce Epper

July 23, 2012

Your external drive will have AT LEAST 1 partition on it. It must be partitioned in order to use it at all. Depending on the options selected when you installed Ubuntu, you may actually have more than one partition on the drive.To create another partition, you will first need to shrink another partition in order to make room for the new one. You can use gparted (gparted.sourceforge.net) to do this. Download and burn the ISO image and restart your computer with it. Most operations are quite evident in how to accomplish them. After you shrink the first partition, you will be able to create another.As with any major disk operations, make sure you back up your data first. Also, it is possible to run GParted from Ubuntu, but you run a greater risk of losing data by doing so.

Shehan Nirmal

I’ve done this using a LiveCD without losing any data…

July 31, 2012
0 votes

Shehan Nirmal

July 31, 2012

First boot your PC or Laptop with an Ubuntu LiveCD. Then connect the external hard drive. It will be mounted automatically, just unmount it. Then run GParted from Applications -> System Tools. Then you will see all the devices connected to your PC/Laptop. Then select the external hard drive from the list and right-click on it. Then click “Resize/Move”. Then move the slider in the pop-up window to resize the partition and press “Resize/Move” button. Then, on the list of the main window, you will see the unallocated space you just freed up. Then press New partition button (the first button under the main menu) to create a partition using the free space.

sandeep

thanks a lot Nirmal…

August 1, 2012
0 votes

George Monroe

July 31, 2012

your question is confusing.
as the others have said gparted is a good choice but you still have to be careful not to damage what is already installed.
are you sure you need another partition?
if there is nothing on the drive, as in saved files you could re install an manually partition the drive

sandeep

thank you George.

August 1, 2012