[ale] Next question-- partition trouble

[charriglists at bellsouth.net (Calvin Harrigan)]

On 8/5/2010 8:40 AM, Mark Wright wrote:
> Next question,
>
> I installed ubuntu 9.04 on a laptop that had 8.04 and some other OS
> already on it. The partition software respected the previously installed
> OSes and only used what was left on the disk to put 9.04. I didn't need
> the down level Ubuntu partition but couldn't do anything about it. Now I
> am running out of space and want to find a way to get rid of the 8.04
> partition and use the space for the 9.04 installation while preserving
> the other OS that is being tolerated due to proprietary wimax hardware.
>
> I have been reading up on grub and gparted but am not seeing what I
> need. I think I should be able to erase the pointers to the partition
> with Grub then suck that space into the other Ubuntu installation with
> Gparted.
>
> Any partitioning experts?
>
> Mark Wright
> m.perry.wright at gmail.com <mailto:m.perry.wright at gmail.com>
>
>
>

Sounds like a job for a disk/partition imaging.  Create images of the 
partitions, making note of where/what they are, then repartition the 
drive to what you want and the restoring the backups to their 
appropriate partitions.  I recommend Acronis, but it's commercial, I'm 
sure there are open source imaging tools. I've heard good things about 
Clonezilla, thought I don't have in depth knowledge or experience with 
it.  Have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software