If a partition is shrunk down to give more space in a different partition, if the unallocated space is to the “left” of the partition you want to expand, it won't work with the built-in partition programs on Windows or Ubuntu. The process will also need the use with an external program that can clone partitions to move the positioning of the partitions.

In the instance of wanting to shrink a Windows partition to expand Ubuntu, but Windows was installed on the drive first, here is how the process can resolved using the disk partition applications of the operating systems and the program CloneZilla

The safest way to resized a partition is in the individual operating systems

1. Log into Windows, and go to Disk Management
2. Once in Disk Management, select the Windows partition (default name C:)
3. Right click the partition and select Shrink Volume…
4. Input the amount of space you want to remove from the partition, and complete the prompts.
5. Once the partition has been shrunk, and the unallocated space has been created, restart the computer and boot into Ubuntu
6. Once in Ubuntu, go to either Disks or GParted (whichever you have installed or prefer)
7. Select the unallocated space and create a new ext4 partition using all of the available space.

Note: If your Ubuntu partition is larger than the new partition, you will want to shrink Ubuntu to be smaller. Ubuntu partition must be smaller than the new partition for the cloning process to work

• Once completed, shut down the computer.

To run CloneZilla, you will need the program installed on a USB thumb drive. It can be easily done by anyone using Rufus and the .iso file type install of Clonezilla. There is also a currently working CloneZilla thumb drive in IT, but we request that anyone who needs to use it stays in IT while running CloneZilla.

1. Insert CloneZilla thumb drive into USB port and start the computer.
2. Upon seeing the Dell logo, continuously press the key F12 until the screen displays “Preparing one-time boot menu” in the top right corner.
3. Once the boot menu appears, select the USB device option (often will have the name of the USB thumb drive's manufactured name)
   • for example, IT's installer appears as: UEFI: KingstonDT 100 G2 1.00, Partition 1
4. Once selected, let it run (it will likely beep)
5. Select CloneZilla live (Default settings)
6. Select English
7. Keep default Keyboard layout
8. Start CloneZilla
9. To work on partitions on the same disk, select Device-device (second option)
10. Select Beginner mode
11. Because changes are on a single disk, select Part_to_local_part (second option)
12. Will list all partitions, select the partition that Ubuntu is currently on
13. Next, select the partition that was just created
    • If Ubuntu partition is larger than the new partition, this step will fail.
14. Select the first option
15. Select the first option
16. Press Enter
17. Answer Y, followed by Y again by the following prompt
18. The screen will run through some code before getting to a PartClone window
19. Once the PartClone installation window is complete, follow the prompts to reboot.

1. Once the system reboots, load into Ubuntu
2. Reopen either the Disks app or GParted
3. Once in the program, there should be two visible copies of Ubuntu partition
4. Select the partition on the “right,” either select the minus button below the volume (Disks), or right click and select Delete (GParted)
5. Once the partition is deleted, the remaining Ubuntu partition can be resized.