How to Use GParted to Prepare a Drive for Linux

Use GParted when you need to resize partitions and make room on a hard drive.

Hard drives must be partitioned and formatted prior to installation for most operating systems, including most Linux distributions. Although most Linux distributions include a partitioning and formatting tool execution process during installation, the GParted partitioning and formatting tool enables you to prepare a hard drive for Linux installation using a graphical user interface, or GUI, that is not always available during Linux installation. Use the GParted "Live CD" tool to prepare a hard drive for Linux.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Windows computer with a bootable CD/DVD-RWdrive
• CD/DVD burning software installed on the Windows computer
• Blank writable CD disc
• Blank hard drive that you wish to prepare for Linux
• Amount of RAM memory in the computer to which Linux will be installed

Instructions

1. Click the "Start" button on the Windows desktop taskbar and click "Internet Explorer" in the menu that appears. Type the URL for the GParted download Web page (gparted.sourceforge.net) into the address bar near the top of Internet Explorer and tap the "Enter" key.

2. Click the "Download Stable Releases" hyperlink and then click the "Download gparted..." link. Click the "To help protect your security" bar at the top of the Web page if it appears, and click "Download File..." in the menu that appears. Navigate to the computer desktop in the window that appears and click the "Save" button.

3. Insert a blank CD disc into the CD/DVD-RW drive on the Windows computer. Click the "Open" button once the download completes. The CD/DVD burning software installed on the computer will open and prompt you to burn the downloaded image to disc. Start the CD burning process to burn the GParted image file to the writable CD.

4. Connect the hard drive you intend to use for Linux to the Windows computer. Reboot the computer and let the computer boot into the GParted environment from disc.

5. Double-click on the "GParted" icon in the computer desktop environment that appears. Locate the hard drive you wish to prepare for Linux in the list of hard drives displayed. The hard drive you want to prepare can be identified by the drive size displayed and its "unallocated" label in the list of drives.

6. Right-click the hard drive you wish to prepare for Linux and click "New" in the menu that appears. Click the "New Size (MiB)" field and enter the RAM memory size of the computer to which the hard drive will be installed. Click the "Create as" drop-down box and click "Primary Partition." Click the "Filesystem" drop-down box and click "linux-swap." Click the "Add" button.

7. Right-click the unallocated hard-drive space you are preparing for Linux and click "New." Click the "New Size (MiB)" field and enter the size of the partition to which Linux will be installed. Click the "Create as" drop-down box and click "Primary Partition." Click the "Filesystem" drop-down box and click "ext3." Click the "Add" button.

8. Right-click the new EXT3 partition just created and click "Manage Flags" in the menu that appears. Click the "boot" check box and click "Close."

9. Click the "Apply" button near the top of the "GParted" window and click "Apply" in the window that appears. Click "Close" when the "All operations successfully completed" message appears. Reboot the computer and immediately eject the GParted CD disc on initial bootup.

References

• Dedoimedo: GParted Partitioning Software
• YouTube; GParted...Your Friend Forever; sneekylinux