How can I enlarge the storage for windows?

Question

I have both Windows10 and Ubuntu18 installed. But recently I find that there is not enough storage for Windows, so I want to enlarge the storage for Windows. What should I do without harming any one of the systems?

Answer 1

The easiest,sanest method is simple to buy another hard drive.

Second option, use something like gparted live CD/DVD/bootable USB to do the re-partitioning. However, this carries risks of you screwing it up.

1. Shrink the linux partition.
2. Move it to the right.
3. Extend the windows partition into the vacated space.
4. Apply
5. Wait a long time

Complication, many linux OS use multiple partitions, and then you have to shrink the right one.

1. Shrink the one with the most free space
2. Move it to the right
3. Move all of the ones that are in the way to the right.
   3a. Shrink extended partition to the right as needed
4. Finally expand the windows partition.
5. Click apply
6. Wait a long time

In addition, with MBR you can only have 4 primary partitions. So you might have to mess with extended partitions depending on your existing setup. In addition, you might already have 4 primary partition and be unable to create an extended partition if you need one.

Even then, it might screw up grub and you might have to fix it. Get the grub rescue DVD

https://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/

GPT frees you from the whole primary partition,extended, and logical partition nightmare but has other caveats.

Therefore adding a second hard drive is the simplest because all you have to do is connect 2 cables and format the drive and there is no risk of damaging your data.

Answer 2

Another thing you can do is if you have too much free storage space in Ubuntu, you can:

1. shrink the Ubuntu partition
2. make a new partition from the newly freed space, formatted so Windows can read it (ntfs, fat, etc)
3. use the new partition with Windows (as an additional or second partition)

You should be able to do this with gparted from a live USB.