I have dual boot Win10 and Linux (manjaro), and I want to shrink my NTFS C:\ partition to free up space in my ext4 root partition on the same physical drive.
I keep reading online that NTFS partitioning is best handled by Windows itself. However, Windows cannot partition ext4, so I thought I'd use a live GParted session for the ext4 extending part only.
So why not shrink my C:\ partition IN WINDOWS, obtain my unallocated space, then boot into live GParted, and use the unallocated space to extend my ext4 root.
This, or do everything from GParted in one go? What has the best chance of success?
I could also install GParted on my running Linux distro, and do the extending from there. But I feel like GParted live would somehow be... better?
some of file system not support extend from the beginning of the partition. make sure you checked ext4 support it
I'm not sure whether this is equivalent, but the free space was on the left of the root partition, so I first moved the root partition to the left of the free space, then extended it to the right. It probably took twice as long. And maybe the risk is the same, I've no idea
You will be fine doing your first plan. Defragment your windows drive first (you’re not wearing down your ssd with that operation. Modern ssds have wear leveling tech and are good for like 100k writes so it’s not a big deal to defragment it. Also if it’s getting slower doing a level uhh 2 spinrite scan will fix that by rewriting everything. Ask if you want to know why).
So I finally did it. Results?
First was unable to shrink in windows due to a bunch of reasons, but I overcame them: hibernation file, page(r)file, and other bullcrap.
Finally, I could shrink. Then, a fatal error in the shrinking process. I ignored it. Waited few minutes and the disk seemed to have shrunk after all. Weird.
Then proceeded as planned. GParted the rest. All is working fine now!
Moral of the story? None.