how to merge partition with gparted?

Question

I want to merge 2 partitions. Here's a screenshot:

The black circle is an unallocated partition, and the red circle is root partition. how to merge it? Help, please. I'm working at the ubuntu.

Answer 1

You can't merge two partitions. Fortunately, in this case, you only have one partition, and one unallocated area (that's not a partition yet), so this is possible although a bit risky.

1. Reboot from a "live CD", because sda8 is your / partition and you cannot alter it while the system is using it. You can use an Ubuntu Live CD or a GParted Live CD.

2. Either delete the sda3 "swap" partition, or move it all the way to the left. (It is safe to delete swap partitions because they contain temporary data that's only useful while the system is running, and it's reset anyway every time you reboot.)

   Now you have the unallocated space immediately before sda8.

3. Move the sda8 partition all the way to the left. Moving is a long operation because it'll need to transfer the entire 99GB of data to the new location. Fortunately, the old and new locations don't overlap, so it's not as risky as it would otherwise be.

   Now you have the unallocated space immediately after sda8.

4. Resize the sda8 partition to occupy all unallocated space. This will be fast.

(Note: In GParted, after doing steps 1/2, you can just resize sda8 to the left, and it will do steps 3 & 4 at once.)