May 14, 2024

Introduction

If you’re dual-booting Linux with Windows 11 and need to adjust your partitions, this guide will help you through the process. It involves shrinking the Windows partition to free up space and then resizing the Linux partition to utilize that newly available space.

Figure 1.1: GParted, a free application for graphically managing your disk partitions

Preparing Windows

First, you’ll need to create unallocated space on your disk by shrinking the Windows partition:

  1. Boot into Windows and open the disk management tool:
    • Right-click the start menu and select disk management.
  2. Shrink the C: partition:
    • Right-click on the C: partition and choose shrink volume.
    • Specify the amount of space to shrink and proceed with the operation. This will create unallocated space on your drive.

Booting into Linux

Next, you need to boot into Linux using a USB drive:

  1. Insert your Linux USB drive and restart your computer.
  2. If you don’t see the option to try your distribution in the boot menu:
    • Restart and enter the BIOS/UEFI settings by pressing F2, F12, Esc, or another key specific to your system during startup.
    • Change the boot order to prioritize booting from the USB drive first. Save the changes and exit.

Adjusting partitions with GParted

Once you’re in the Linux live session, you’ll use GParted to resize your partitions:

  1. Open GParted:
    • Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T and type sudo gparted, then press Enter.
  2. Check unallocated space:
    • Locate the unallocated space you created in Windows. Ensure it is adjacent to your Linux root partition (formatted as ext4). If it’s not adjacent, you’ll need to move partitions around to make it so.
  3. Resize the Linux partition:
    • Right-click on the Linux root partition (ext4) and select resize/move.
    • Adjust the size to include the unallocated space.
    • Click the apply button (green checkmark) to execute the changes. GParted will process the resizing operation.

Final steps

  1. Remove the USB drive:
    • Once the resizing is complete, eject the Linux USB drive.
  2. Reboot your system:
    • Restart your computer. The system should now reflect the new partition sizes.

This process allows you to effectively manage disk space on a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows 11. Always ensure you have backups of important data before making changes to disk partitions.