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I have used dd to create a partial/truncated image of a disk which only includes allocated spaces, then converted it to a vdi file for VirtualBox. I have successfully used the vdi image to run the Linux (Ubuntu) which was installed on the disk.

Now I wan't to run GParted to remove partitions which are located before the Linux partition (so that I can create a smaller image). But GParted doesn't work. It shows entire disk as unallocated. How can I fix it?

Additional info:

sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print

Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

sudo fdisk -l -u /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 97.7 GB, 97729379840 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 11881 cylinders, total 190877695 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x3c36156a Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 2459647 1228800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 2459648 125339129 61439741 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 125339646 190877695 32769025 5 Extended /dev/sda5 125339648 190877695 32769024 83 Linux

sudo sfdisk -uS -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 11881 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 2459647 2457600 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 2459648 125339129 122879482 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 125339646 190877695 65538050 5 Extended /dev/sda4 0 - 0 0 Empty /dev/sda5 125339648 190877695 65538048 83 Linux

sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda

Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. # partition table of /dev/sda unit: sectors /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 2457600, Id= 7, bootable /dev/sda2 : start= 2459648, size=122879482, Id= 7 /dev/sda3 : start=125339646, size= 65538050, Id= 5 /dev/sda4 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0 /dev/sda5 : start=125339648, size= 65538048, Id=83
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  • Hint: Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 20:10

1 Answer 1

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Perhaps the easiest solution would be to increase the size of the image to make gparted happy again. This most probably is a one-off kind of issue, so increasing the image size by a couple of additional megabytes could be enough:

dd if=/dev/zero of=newimage.raw bs=1M count=102400 qemu-img convert -f vdi oldimage.vdi -O raw oldimage.raw dd if=oldimage.raw of=newimage.raw count=190877695 conv=notrunc qemu-img convert -f raw newimage.raw -O vdi newimage.vdi

Or simply:

cp oldimage.vdi newimage.vdi VBoxManage modifyhd /path/to/newimage.vdi --resize 102400

Then you should retry to run gparted on newimage.vdi. If it still complains, you may try to increase the size of the image to the original disk size, provided you have enough space.

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  • Thanks, second method didn't work, but first one solved my issue (just instead of first line I appended enough zero to oldimage.raw to resize it to next GB). Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 13:55
  • To be honest, I never used VirtualBox on Linux and I have no idea what are the prerequisites for an image to be resizable with VBoxManage command. Glad to hear your issue is solved! Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 14:03

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