Linux Tip: Resize an ext3 partition with gparted

Recently I embarked on a cleaning spree prompted by full capacity on my filedrive (where all my digital media lives). After shuffling files all around the system, deleting old OS files that were no longer needed, etc, I had 3x 100gb partitions with just a little bit of stuff in each. What I wanted was 1 big partition. I copied everything from partition 2 & 3 to partition 1 and did the following:

(all commands run as root user)

1. umounted the drive:

   umount /dev/sda1; umount /dev/sda2; umount /dev/sda3

2. started gparted:

   gparted

• deleted partitions sda2 and sda3
• quit gparted
3. checked the filesystem:

   fsck /dev/sda1

4. converted filesystem to ext2 (ext3 cannot be resized):

   tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sda1

5. started gparted again:

   gparted

• resized /dev/sda1 by dragging the graphical representation to the end of the drive
• applied settings
• quit gparted
6. converted back to ext3:

   tune2fs -j /dev/sda1

7. re-checked filesystem:

   fsck /dev/sda1

8. modified /etc/fstab to no longer include sda2 & sda3
9. re-mounted filesystem:

   mount -a

That’s it!