Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

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rhowaldt
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Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by rhowaldt » Sun Jul 17, 2016 2:53 am

hey guys,

not sure where to post this so figured support is best. this is not about BBQ per se.

I have a dual-boot setup with BORK! and Win7. Originally I only used Win7 sporadically and have only a handful of Gigabytes allocated for it, since BORK! was my main system. Now that will switch around due to different life demands. I need to allocate more GB for my Win7 - don't mind it using my full disk, no real need to retain BORK!. but I don't have a Win7 disk with me here in HK so can't re-install Win7 (which is what I'd normally do). Here is my question.

The MBR is currently GRUB. I want to expand my Win7 partition. That will expand over my BORK! install, but I have no idea what part of the BORK install a partition expansion might overwrite. I'm afraid if I expand, it might overwrite GRUB, and make my system unbootable. How do I go about this?
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by pidsley » Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:00 am

Just so I understand -- you want to make the Win7 partition bigger, but you are using BORK's GRUB as the bootloader? How big are the BORK and Windows partitions now?

Can you use gparted (from a live USB) to resize the partitions? This won't overwrite anything, just resize them.

Can we see the output of

Code: Select all

lsblk
from the BORK install please? And tell us what partitions are being used by Windows and Linux.

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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by franksinistra » Sun Jul 17, 2016 6:29 am

Safest way might be to clone your win7 partition on external hdd and reformat your disk, then clone it again. I did it once a long time ago using clonezilla, or you could use resize2fs utility.
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by machinebacon » Sun Jul 17, 2016 10:13 am

You probably need the Install or Recovery CD for "bootrec" and/or something to restore MBR.
So IMO (no guarantee!) you would 1) be in Windows and remove the Linux volume there, 2) reboot into a recovery session and get to the command prompt to fix the MBR with bootrec, 3) reboot, pray and format the now free ex-Linux volume

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32523/ho ... -problems/
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by machinebacon » Sun Jul 17, 2016 10:15 am

But another option would be booting a live session of something that has gparted, and then swiftly resize the Linux partition to the minimum. BORK! originally is smaller than 1.5GB. For GRUB, you could make Windows the first choice and put the timeout to 0 seconds.

I would keep this small Linux system there for recovery of Windows stuff. The size shall not be a problem.

Edit: ah sorry, I just noticed pidsley's post... so, yup, if he says so too it must be true :D
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by wuxmedia » Sun Jul 17, 2016 11:22 am

I would go for the resize too, probably back some shit up though. (PM me if you need offline remote storage)
surely in HK you can 'find' a copy of win7..?
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by rhowaldt » Sun Jul 17, 2016 1:26 pm

thanks for all the replies guys!

Wux, already backed all my stuff on both Win7 & BORK up manually on external HD :)

pidsley, here's the output of lsblk and blkid:

Code: Select all

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 149.1G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   100M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0  19.4G  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0 100.5G  0 part /media/storage
└─sda5   8:5    0    29G  0 part /
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 

device       fs_type         label              mount point              UUID
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/sda1    ntfs            System Reserved   (not mounted)            66585C6C585C3D4D
/dev/sda2    ntfs                              (not mounted)            380C61CE0C6187A8
/dev/sda4    ext4            storage           /media/storage           0fd2b600-ced7-4ee3-80f4-b97bd3005a95
/dev/sda5    ext4                              /                        620f80b9-83c6-4e8f-a137-b353156bae3d
so, sda2 is the Win7 partition, sda4 is my storage, sda5 is BORK.

say I would want to make BORK (sda5) 10G, and make Win7 (sda2) 38.4G.
I think I just don't fully understand filesystems in the sense of what a resize would do, if you say it won't delete anything. How does it know which Gigabytes to remove? Or will it only remove space that isn't used first?
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by wuxmedia » Sun Jul 17, 2016 1:33 pm

^ I'm not the most knowledable, but I think linux stores it quite nicely (in one lump) whereas windows, err doesn't.
So you shouldn't need to worry about making a windows one bigger.
quite possibly wrong.
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by machinebacon » Sun Jul 17, 2016 2:04 pm

Nothing would be removed when you resize the partitions, there is a boundary for how much the minimum and maximum is, depending on where the other partition starts or ends. fdisk -l /dev/sda shows you these. In your case *I THINK* you would first resizechange sda4's start, then sda5's start, then sda2's end - because you actually want to resize 3 partitions (sda2, sda4 and sda5)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GN ... Partitions

As long as you don't touch sda and sda1, you should be fine. Also don't tinker with the start byte of sda2.
I'm not sure if parted writes the changes directly (fdisk does not read from the updated mtab -- it would require a reboot) - I think parted does.

Use gparted, seriously, from a live session. Everything else requires a bit of thinking, and manual work to resize the filesystems.

Edit: AFAIR you do need to defrag the windows drive and poweroff (not just reboot) before working with partition resizers.
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by pidsley » Sun Jul 17, 2016 2:15 pm

rhowaldt wrote: pidsley, here's the output of lsblk and blkid:
This may be complicated, because of the order and the fact that you have both primary and logical partitions. Machinebacon's method should work unless the extended partition makes it harder to extend sda2.

Please post the output of the following command (from BORK, and you may have to install parted first):

Code: Select all

sudo parted /dev/sda print

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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by wuxmedia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 7:16 am

maybe you could get windows to mount that 100G storage partition, then you perhaps you wouldn't have to worry and store all your shit on there?
http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways- ... m-windows/
perhaps?

or are we talking applications taking up room?

EDIT - Oh fuck that - read only in windows? Nvrmind
yeah just get a gparted live iso (the 'official' one I actually find to be a drag)
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by wuxmedia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 8:54 am

wait a fucking minute...
Rhowindows7 wrote:We don't support...side-by-side installations with GPT or dualboot with anything newer than Windows XP.
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by rust collector » Mon Jul 18, 2016 10:17 am

I am sure there is a way, but I think I would (if I didn't care about the bork install) I would just delete the logical partition stuff, and install something on a 2gb partition on the end of the drive.
let it install grub on sda as usual, and it will keep working.
Then, boot windows, and use the disk manager (iIrc) to expand the windows partition, to use the unused space.

Oh, uhm, do you need anything on the "storage" partition?

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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by rhowaldt » Mon Jul 18, 2016 12:49 pm

thanks guys, your comments shed some good light on the issue. will try this when i have the time, and let you know requested command outputs etc.

@wux: i just did it man. fuck the system.

@rust: yes, my "storage" partition is my storage man, i need all that shit, that's why i stored it :D - seriously though, i could back it up and eliminate the partition, i can't (easily) access it under Win7 anyway as it is ext4. we shall see. for now i just want my Win7 to stop complaining about lacking memory, and be able to use my damn drive instead of having to worry about it filling up the final 500MB left :/
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Re: Windows 7 dual-boot MBR re-partition question

Unread post by arnold » Mon Jul 18, 2016 11:12 pm

rhowaldt wrote:hey guys,

but I don't have a Win7 disk with me here in HK so can't re-install Win7 (which is what I'd normally do).
last time I had to do a Windows 7 install I downloaded the iso from an official microsoft site (install media was never supplied with my wife's laptop when purchased new). Not sure if this is still an option or if Windows 7 is still supported.

Perhaps this is an option you were not aware of.

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