- The alternatives to partitioning a Mac. If you don't want to partition your main disk, there are other ways you can safely run a different version of macOS (or OS X) or a beta of a new version.
- According to a Lifehacker how-to, it is possible to dual-boot an Intel-based Mac with OSX and GNU-Linux, but you'll need to shrink your HFS partition and create an EXT3/4 partition and a swap partition in that space (instead of installing in/on an HFS partition).The following is verbatim from that How-To. Boot your Mac into OS X. If you're lucky, this may be one of the last times you have to.
- Steps to Resize Mac Partition. Navigate through your menu and open Mac Disk Utility. When Mac Disk Utility opens, select the drive you want to resize. Then select Partition on the toolbar to resize the Volume of your choice using the Utility tool. A pie chart will open showing free space and space occupied by each Volume.
Since Ubuntu can interact with NTFS (Windows) partitions, but Windows cannot interact with EXT4 (Linux) partitions, your best option is to create an NTFS partition in that free space. First click /dev/sda4 and drag it to the right, then create another partition inside the free space.
GParted is a free partition editor for graphically managing your diskpartitions.
With GParted you can resize, copy, and move partitions without dataloss, enabling you to:
With GParted you can resize, copy, and move partitions without dataloss, enabling you to:
- Grow or shrink your C: drive
- Create space for new operating systems
- Attempt data rescue from lost partitions
Discover More
- Learn why partition your disk device.
- Explore the documentation and FAQ.
- Get help with disk partitioning.
- View screenshots of GParted in action.
Features
- Perform actions with partitions such as:
- create or delete
- resize or move
- check
- label
- set new UUID
- copy and paste
- Manipulate file systems such as:
- btrfs
- ext2 / ext3 / ext4
- fat16 / fat32
- hfs / hfs+
- linux-swap
- lvm2 pv
- nilfs2
- ntfs
- reiserfs / reiser4
- udf
- ufs
- xfs
Requirements
GParted can be used on x86 and x86-64 based computers running Linux,Windows, or Mac OS X by booting from mediacontaining GParted Live. A minimum of 320 MBof RAM is needed to use all of thefeatures of the GParted application.
Free Software
GParted is freesoftware.
You have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, andimprove GParted.
You do not have to pay money to use GParted.
GParted is distributed under theGNU General Public License version 2 or (at your option) any later version.
You have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, andimprove GParted.
You do not have to pay money to use GParted.
GParted is distributed under theGNU General Public License version 2 or (at your option) any later version.
Creating disk partitions enables you to split your hard drive into multiple sections that act independently.
In Linux, users must structure storage devices (USB and hard drives) before using them. Partitioning is also useful when you are installing multiple operating systems on a single machine.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to create a partition using the Linux
parted
or fdisk
command.- A system running Linux
- A user account with
sudo
orroot
privileges - Access to a terminal window / command line (Activities > Search > Terminal)
Follow the steps below to partition a disk in Linux by using the
parted
command.Before making a partition, list available storage devices and partitions. This action helps identify the storage device you want to partition.
Run the following command with
sudo
to list storage devices and partitions:The terminal prints out available storage devices with information about:
- Model – Model of the storage device.
- Disk – Name and size of the disk.
- Sectorsize – Logical and physical size of the memory. Not to be confused with available disk space.
- PartitionTable – Partition table type (msdos, gpt, aix, amiga, bsd, dvh, mac, pc98, sun, and loop).
- DiskFlags – Partitions with information on size, type, file system, and flags.
Partitions types can be:
- Primary – Holds the operating system files. Only four primary partitions can be created.
- Extended – Special type of partition in which more than the four primary partitions can be created.
- Logical – Partition that has been created inside of an extended partition.
In our example, there are two storage devices (
/dev/sda
and /dev/sdb
):Note: The first storage disk (
dev/sda
or dev/vda
) contains the operating system. Creating a partition on this disk can make your system unbootable. Only create partitions on secondary disks (dev/sdb
, dev/sdc
, dev/vdb
, or dev/vdc
).Open the storage disk that you intend to partition by running the following command:
Always specify the storage device. If you don’t specify a disk name, the disk is randomly selected. To change the disk to
dev/sdb
run:The
dev/sdb
disk is open:Create a partition table before partitioning the disk. A partition table is located at the start of a hard drive and it stores data about the size and location of each partition.
Partition table types are: aix, amiga, bsd, dvh, gpt, mac, ms-dos, pc98, sun, and loop.
The create a partition table, enter the following:
For example, to create a gpt partition table, run the following command:
Type Yes to execute:
Note: The two most commonly used partition table types are gpt and msdos. The latter supports up to sixteen partitions and formats up to 16TB of space while gpt formats up to 9.4ZB and supports up to 128 partitions.
Run the
print
command to review the partition table. The output displays information about the storage device:Note: Run
help mkpart
command to get additional help on how to create a new partition.Let’s make a new 1854MB-partition using the ext4 file system. The assigned disk start shall be 1MB and the disk end is at 1855MB.
To create a new partition, enter the following:
After that, run the
print
command to review information on the newly created partition. The information is displayed under the Disk Flags section:In a gpt partition table, the partition type is the mandatory partition name. In our example, primary is the name of the partition, not the partition type.
To save your actions and quit, enter the
quit
command. Changes are saved automatically with this command.Note: The 'You may need to update /etc/fstab file' message signals that the partition can be mounted automatically at boot time.
Follow the steps below to partition a disk in Linux by using the
fdisk
command.Run the following command to list all existing partitions:
The output contains information about storage disks and partitions:
Select the storage disk you want to create partitions on by running the following command:
The
/dev/sdb
storage disk is open:1. Run the
n
command to create a new partition.2. Select the partition number by typing the default number (2).
3. After that, you are asked for the starting and ending sector of your hard drive. It is best to type the default number in this section (3622912).
4. The last prompt is related to the size of the partition. You can choose to have several sectors or to set the size in megabytes or gigabytes. Type
+2GB
to set the size of the partition to 2GB.A message appears confirming that the partition is created.
The system created the partition, but the changes are not written on the disk.
1. To write the changes on disk, run the
w
command:2. Verify that the partition is created by running the following command:
As you can see, the partition
/dev/sdb2
has been created.Once a partition has been created with the
parted
of fdisk
command, format it before using it.Format the partition by running the following command:
To begin interacting with the disk, create a mount point and mount the partition to it.
1. Create a mount point by running the following command:
2. After that, mount the partition by entering:
The terminal does not print out an output if the commands are executed successfully.
3. Verify if partition is mounted by using the
df hT
command:After following this step-by-step tutorial, you should have a better understanding on how to partition a disk in Linux by using the
parted
or fdisk
command.For more Linux commands, see our Linux Commands Cheat Sheet.
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