How to resize partition size while the middle partition is the BIOS Boot?

Question

I used Clonezilla to restore an old system to a larger hard disk. However, when I do all my job, I found my first partition doesn't use all the disk space.

I know the method to resize the partition size by using fdisk, however, I noticed that there is a BIOS boot partition between the first partition and free space. Now I don't know how to deal with it.

So I want to ask how to expand my first partition to use most of my free space in this disk.

The second partition type is BIOS Boot, Contents: Unknown

@Philippe it shows Unkown . But I think it may be used to boot my system. — einverne, Mar 25 '21 at 08:36

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 25 '21 at 11:52

0

To be sure it's used (or not used), you can :

# back it up
dd if=/dev/sda2 of=$HOME/sda2.dd

# wipe it
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda2

# reboot

If reboot goes normally, that mean the partition is not used.

You can then remove sda2 and extend sda1.

answered Mar 25 '21 at 11:52

Philippe

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If my system doesn't boot, what should I do to restore this partition? – einverne Mar 26 '21 at 01:31
You can use a live linux (like ubuntu) to restore, or use clonezilla to do backup/restore. – Philippe Mar 26 '21 at 08:09
Thank you @Philippe for your advice. – einverne Mar 30 '21 at 11:29
Feel free to upvote if it's of some help. – Philippe Mar 30 '21 at 11:32

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 30 '21 at 11:28

I finally figure it out.

I made a live boot Linux mint USB stick, then boot into the Linux Mint on USB stick. Start the GParted, then move the /dev/sda2 to the end of the hard drive. Than expand the /dev/sda1 partition to use the free space.

Then I got this:

But be sure to back up all your data if you want to do the same thing.

How to resize partition size while the middle partition is the BIOS Boot?

2 Answers2