Is there a way to give EndeavourOS more space without having to reinstall it? (Dual-Booted with Windows 10)

I heard that I had to reinstall EndeavourOS or any OS to allocate it more space, but why? I could just shrink any OS with no problems, so there should be a way to give it more space without reinstalling, right?

Use Gparted or KDE partition manager, take a screenshot of your disk setup and post it here.

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Or output of

sudo fdisk -l

There are many ways to achieve that. What would be the best way to add space to an OS depends on your disk layout and other disk/partition related settings.

Starting from scratch

If youā€™d start from scratch, then the first thing would be to design the disk layout (partitions and their sizes) for the systems you are going to install.

If you use grub as the boot manager, then:

  • If you will install Windows, install it first.
  • If you will install non-Arch based systems, install them next.
  • Then install are the (other) Arch based systems, if needed.
  • As the last, install EndeavourOS.

This install order makes sure you can boot any of the installed systems. :wink:

Fixing existing installs

As already mentioned in previous posts, please show your current disk partitioning info.

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The way I usually did it was to use a tool such as Paragon Partition Manager CE on the windows partition to shrink said partition by whatever amount needed while simultaneously increasing the Linux partition by the same amount (and not e.g. the SWAP partition, which depending on how your partitions are arranged might happen; as the others said, your disk partitioning info would be nice here).

The Linux OS so far has always automatically detected the increased partition size. And everything was fine for me with that method so far.

That being said, it is probably not the smartest nor best way to do it, but at least for me I found it the easiest way to do it. The reason for me to do it this way was because the Windows partition was a complete mess (i.e. Windows was preventing the shrinking because apparently it had some ā€œdummy filesā€ or whatever in the empty parts of its partitionā€¦) and the Paragon Partition Manager manages to sort these things out.

Just a small side note here - if you intend to resize Windows drives, use Windows to do it (Disk management will allow that, and probably do a safer job). regardless, it is a good idea to backup anything you donā€™t want to lose before any resize operations! It is like taking an umbrella with you - if you have it, it probably wonā€™t rainā€¦ :grin:

Showing the layout you have, and the sizes you intend to have will enable more accurate information for your use caseā€¦

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I second this. Modifying Windows partitions from Linux can sometimes be buggy. I had bad experiences in the past and have decided to stick to editing Win partitions from Windows.

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AFAIK, Windows sometimes puts ā€˜specialā€™ files in unlikely places, and no ā€˜outsidersā€™ recognize them - leading to problems when resizing the ā€˜empty spaceā€™ā€¦

Yeah Iā€™ll do that, last time I did that it wasnā€™t fun, the windows disk manager doesnt allow me to shrink it but by using minitool it should work, I could just resize the root partition of Endeavour after that, right?

Not necessarily, depending on the partition layout on the diskā€¦

BTW, what is ā€œminitoolā€?
OK, checked it, a third party tool for Windows. Never used that.

Oh, also do I resize the Endeavour OS partition via windows or endeavour itself?

No, windows cannot do that.

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It is not possible to resize the partitions in use in a running system. You would need to do it from the Live USB, using Gparted.

@skullnoober, please post the info on your disk layout as has been requested several times in the thread to get more relevant and accurate answers. Thank you!

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Windows ā€˜Disk Managementā€™ does allow shrinkage - if the space is available. It knows where stuff is (see above) and may not allow if something is hiding in the ā€˜emptyā€™ space. In that case it might be necessary to wipe the disk and start again (installing Windows first). Sometimes it isnā€™t pretty!

As for resizing. moving etc for Linux stuff - anything not mounted can be modified by GParted. Easiest way for that is live ISO boot, then select GParted, and set as desired.

Still no view of whatā€™s there now - or of intentionsā€¦ ttough to be specific without information.

As Johnny Five said - ā€œNeed more inputā€ā€¦ :grin:

Here it is:

Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA MQ01ABF0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 65161B10-4ABB-436F-AD77-F6F5C821E0DE

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048   1023999   1021952   499M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2    1024000   1228799    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/sda3    1228800   1261567     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda4    1261568 651020287 649758720 309.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  975628288 976771071   1142784   558M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6  659304448 660942847   1638400   800M EFI System
/dev/sda7  660942848 975628287 314685440 150.1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda8  651020288 659304447   8284160     4G Linux swap

Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Disk /dev/sdb: 57.3 GiB, 61530439680 bytes, 120176640 sectors
Disk model: Ultra           
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1          32 120176639 120176608 57.3G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Disk /dev/loop1: 99.44 MiB, 104267776 bytes, 203648 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop0: 373.78 MiB, 391933952 bytes, 765496 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop2: 310.8 MiB, 325902336 bytes, 636528 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

A picture says more than 1000 words!
:wink:

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Thanks!
Also the actual physical layout of partitions on the disk is neededā€¦

Some additional remarks:

  • you have a second EFI partition, but only one is needed in principal (if the size is adequate)
  • a swap file could be used instead of a swap partition

image

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ah, so I only had to use the 100mb efi? and how can I use a swap file

The EndeavourOS installer should allow you to create the swap file. And looks like you could use the first EFI partition without creating another. Note that do not wipe the 100M efi partition, simply use it via a mountpoint.