Preface

Manage Partitions with GParted is a practical, hands-on guide that provides step-by-step instructions, including screenshots, to effectively use your hard drive.

With this book you start with simple tasks that help you to identify drives and partitions. Next you progress to tasks covering the basics of how to grow, shrink, move, and copy partitions without data loss. You finish with advanced tasks that leverage the basic tasks to prepare for new operating systems, migrate space between partitions, and share data among Windows, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X.

By following through the tasks, from basic to advanced, this book will empower you with the knowledge and tools to manage partitions with GParted.

What this book covers

Creating live media and running GParted (Must know), introduces the best way to access all of the features of GParted and walks you through the steps to create and boot your very own GParted Live CD.

Identifying proper disk device (Must know), describes how to identify a variety of disk device types through the GParted application so that you can be confident in selecting the correct device.

Identifying partitions and actions available (Must know), points out how to distinguish between different partitions and the types of operations available, increasing your knowledge of the potential options open to you for partition editing.

Checking and repairing a partition (Should know), discloses how to spot problems with partitions and outlines how you can approach resolving these problems.

Getting space by shrinking a partition (Should know), expresses how to locate partitions with unused space, leading you through the steps to free up this space for use in other areas.

Creating a new partition (Should know), describes the different types of partitions and shows you how to create a new partition and toggle partition flags.

Moving a partition (Become an expert), points out the implications of moving a partition, outlining how you can move a partition and address potential issues.

Adding space by growing a partition (Should know), details how to increase a partition's size, enabling you to resolve issues when a partition is short of space.

Formatting a partition (Should know), explains why you might wish to format an existing partition and the steps to accomplish this task.

Preparing a new disk device for use (Become an expert), covers which type of partition table to use with different operating systems and firmware, and demonstrates how you can create a new partition table.

Copying a partition (Become an expert), outlines the impact of duplicate UUID and label issues, showing you the steps to copy a partition and address these considerations.

Deleting a partition (Should know), describes the steps to delete a partition and outlines how you can address a potential unexpected outcome.

Moving space between partitions (Become an expert), reveals how you can use a combination of recipes to migrate free disk space to where it is most needed.

Preparing for dual boot with GNU/Linux (Become an expert), breaks out the steps to prepare your disk partitions, including an example of how to install a popular GNU/Linux distribution and therefore enabling you to share files between Windows and Linux.

Adding space to GPT RAID (Become an expert), discloses how to resolve a common problem that occurs when you add storage space to a GPT RAID.

Rescuing data from a lost partition (Become an expert), covers the steps needed to attempt rescuing data from a lost partition, enabling you to try recovering from accidental partition deletion.

Appendix: Tips and tricks, outlines additional tasks you can do with GParted, such as maintaining a Mac OS X hybrid partition table, editing iPod partitions, and adding space to virtual machines.

What you need for this book

You will need a basic understanding that disk devices can be divided into separate areas, called partitions, and that these partitions can be used for different purposes.

To follow the recipes in this book you will need an x86 or x86_64 based computer running an operating system, such as Windows, GNU/Linux, or Mac OS X, and a copy of GParted Live (software available for free download from the Internet).

To create your own bootable GParted live CD you will need access to a CD or DVD writer, CD/DVD "burning" software, a blank CD-R/RW disk, and a connection to the Internet.

Alternatively, if your computer does not have a CD/DVD drive, a blank USB flash drive can be used to install a bootable GParted Live image.

Who this book is for

Are you a computer enthusiast keen to maximize your computer's potential?

Have you ever wanted to run multiple operating systems, store data separate from the OS, or otherwise improve the effectiveness of your disk space?

If so, this book is for you.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "Download the disk image file gparted-live-w.x.y-z.iso for the latest stable release of GParted Live from the GParted website."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

sudo mkdir /mnt/myusb

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "To select a device, go to the GParted | Devices menu option and select a device of the correct size".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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