I have dual boot Win10 and Linux (manjaro), and I want to shrink my NTFS C:\ partition to free up space in my ext4 root partition on the same physical drive.

I keep reading online that NTFS partitioning is best handled by Windows itself. However, Windows cannot partition ext4, so I thought I’d use a live GParted session for the ext4 extending part only.

So why not shrink my C:\ partition IN WINDOWS, obtain my unallocated space, then boot into live GParted, and use the unallocated space to extend my ext4 root.

This, or do everything from GParted in one go? What has the best chance of success?

I could also install GParted on my running Linux distro, and do the extending from there. But I feel like GParted live would somehow be… better?

  • So I finally did it. Results?

    First was unable to shrink in windows due to a bunch of reasons, but I overcame them: hibernation file, page®file, and other bullcrap.

    Finally, I could shrink. Then, a fatal error in the shrinking process. I ignored it. Waited few minutes and the disk seemed to have shrunk after all. Weird.

    Then proceeded as planned. GParted the rest. All is working fine now!

    Moral of the story? None.