2 drives, both were partitioned in dual boot, struggling to fully departition | Linux Mint Community🍵 | Page 1

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 1:16 AM

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I’m still new to mint and linux and a lot of the support is jargon heavy. I would like explanations as to the what and why.

The first attempt, several hours ago, i used gparted to remove windows. This was not from a live usb. I mounted one section on the second drive. I realized leaving the partitions as they were was gonna cause some problems with space as i began installing programs.

The second attempt, recently, i used a live usb and deleted an ntf partition that seemed to merge the two unallocated blocks on the first drive. The second drive also has an efi partition which i assume i shouldnt delete but that sits between two unallocated partitions. There doesnt seem to be an option to move it (ive read that moving it can mess with boot order or something). After the seeing the first drive merge automatically, i assume once the two unallocated partitions are together they will do the same. The resize/ move option has a pop-up that describes resizing it but nothing about moving it as i understood it (but this might be a lack of knowledge).

I am very much out of my element on this, but i would like to know how ive maybe messed up and what’s going on. Can i move the partitions together? Do most two drive systems have efi partitions? Are they meant to be first and what does it mean if they arent?

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Slight correction- i call the two split portions on the second drive unallocated but they do seem to be reading as ext4 and not unallocated
Im not entirely sure what the difference is outside of ext4 being linux file system

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 1:50 AM

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floral oriole Slight correction- i call the two split portions on the second drive unallocated...

boot up to your installed Linux Mint, and maximize a terminal. then run:
lsblk -o name,model,fstype,size,partuuid,mountpoint ; efibootmgr

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and show clear result here. use screenshot tool

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 2:55 AM

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realized i did the mountpoint wrong one moment

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digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:09 AM

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ok u can see from last pic. linux boots from p1 of the nvme. this is also same efi partition that formerly would help boot Windows

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main linux OS is on sda4

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run lsblk -f ; cat /etc/fstab

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this will show which partitions are set up critically for automount in the fstab file

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it's probably just the 2 I mentioned, plus a reference for swap

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:12 AM

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digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:13 AM

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yep

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you can delete sda3, you don't need that partition

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:15 AM

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To make sure im understanding:
I can delete sda3 even though it has efi in the name because the actual boot systems are on sda4. Correct?

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:15 AM

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the one you labelled 'second drive' shows has 200 GB of data

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:15 AM

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floral oriole To make sure im understanding: I can delete sda3 even though it has efi in the ...

u may delete sda3

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then open the app named Disks please

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and choose the nvme drive on the left side (samsung)

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on the samsung, click the big free space beside partition 1, then the + icon

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give it name DATA_Samsung

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or something you like, no spaces

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and make as ext4 that space

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:20 AM

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👍 it's loading but followed and it completed

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:21 AM

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ok what did u name it?

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:21 AM

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Samsung_Data

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:21 AM

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ok

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now open file manager

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and cut or copy ALL data from "Second Drive" (sda1) to samsung_data

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when it is finished, check all data moved correctly

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and is readable

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then delete sda1

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then boot live usb, open gparted, and resize sda4. in the "free space preceding" field in the sizer popup window, put 250 MiB and press tab, then drag the right edge of the sizer graphic all the way right, then press resize/move.

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this 250 will be left unallocated for future for EFI in case

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then click the apply-all checkmark on toolbar and wait for it to resize and move lots of data to left

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:50 AM

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This is what it looks like after following everything you said

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:51 AM

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floral oriole This is what it looks like after following everything you said

this looks good. this is live environment?

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:51 AM

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not anymore, i did it on live but switched back

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so screenshot is not from live

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:52 AM

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oh ok. i guess that icon is a digital safe

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looks like a button telephone. but means it's mounted

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:53 AM

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good to know

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:54 AM

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so lsblk -f will show u all the updated info now

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as well as df -h if you wish

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:55 AM

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Thank you for your help!

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:57 AM

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do you want to optimize ?

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as in, tweak ext4 reserved space so you have more available to you

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 3:59 AM

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yes, what would that entail though?

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 3:59 AM

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running a command a few times

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 4:00 AM

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sure, i'll give it a go

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:00 AM

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so for sda4, since it's OS, you only need 1% reserved

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so run:
sudo tune2fs -m 1 /dev/sda4

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and for the data drive, you dont need any reserved, so run:
sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/nvme0n1p2

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then mount up the data partition by clicking 'samsung-data' in file manager

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then run df -h and see the difference , especially on sda4

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 4:07 AM

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an increase of 37 GiB (i assume since all the other units have been in it)

knotty tapir Mar 20, 2026, 4:09 AM

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digital torrent so for sda4, since it's OS, you only need 1% reserved

i'm curious why os' partition needs LESS space (1%) for privileged processes than non-os' partitions (5%)? privileged processes will be started mostly by os, ig.

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:09 AM

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floral oriole an increase of 37 GiB (i assume since all the other units have been in it)

looks good. i take it you moved all your data BACK to sda4

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 4:10 AM

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about to wanted to make sure everything was in the clear first

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:10 AM

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knotty tapir i'm curious why os' partition needs LESS space (1%) for privileged processes tha...

standard no-matter-what is 5%. i gave them the optimal settings

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:11 AM

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floral oriole an increase of 37 GiB (i assume since all the other units have been in it)

it shows here only 28 KiB of data used on nvme0n1p2

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so i figured u moved back the data

knotty tapir Mar 20, 2026, 4:13 AM

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digital torrent standard no-matter-what is 5%. i gave them the optimal settings

sure, 5% is standard as written in the man page. but could you elaborate why os' partition optimized needs less than that? that is what i don't understand.

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:14 AM

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knotty tapir sure, 5% is standard as written in the man page. but could you elaborate why os'...

cuz it's a one terabyte drive. why waste 4 extra percent?

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leave the minimal amount reserved and that's it

knotty tapir Mar 20, 2026, 4:15 AM

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digital torrent leave the minimal amount reserved and that's it

okay, so for a 250 GB SSD , 5% would be optimal?

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:16 AM

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u could leave it default or lower it. depends how desperate u are for extra storage space

digital torrent Mar 20, 2026, 4:21 AM

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floral oriole about to wanted to make sure everything was in the clear first

see #1297195485144154164 message if you want or need second drive to automatically mount at boot

floral oriole Mar 20, 2026, 4:23 AM

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I'll see to that later to determine if i do or not.
Thank you again for your help

#2 drives, both were partitioned in dual boot, struggling to fully departition