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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.