How to resize /flash using ssh

urbasrok · September 5, 2017 at 5:23 PM

I currently run OpenELEC 5.0.8 and cannot update to LibreELEC as the /flash partition is too small (170MB). I tried a fresh install, but my Xtreamer Ultra 2 HTPC will not boot from USB. The only option I see is to ssh into the OpenELEC shell, and resize the /flash partition from command line. After that I plan to copy the update .tar into the /storage/.update folder and hope the OpenELEC will update itself to LibreELEC.

My plan:

- unmount the /storage

- remove the /storage partition

- resize the /flash partition to 1G using builtin parted command

- create a new empty storage partition

- create a new filesystem for /storage

- create a directory /storage/.update

- copy the LibreELEC update into /storage/.update

- reboot and pray

1) Should this even work? If is drop the /storage file system will the Linux OS still be functional?

2) To increase /flash, i first need to decrease the /storage. How do I unmount it. I stopped the Kodi process, but it is still complaining

umount -f /storage

umount: can't forcibly umount /storage: Device or resource busy

**Klojum** · September 5, 2017 at 7:04 PM Official Post

Quote from urbasrok

- remove the /storage partition

You could save yourself plenty of time, by using the LibreELEC USB/SD Creator.

All will be wiped clean and new proper partitions will be created.

**chewitt** · September 6, 2017 at 5:18 AM Official Post

You cannot resize partitions when booted from the OS so you need to boot from USB - Ubuntu with gparted is easiest unless you're familiar with doing things from the command line. Or do the backup / clean install / selective restore process Klojum is hinting at. Ultra2 (which I used as the family daily-driver for a long time) can boot from USB but it needs "legacy mode" or something to be set in the BIOS first before it will see the USB device as bootable; and even then the BIOS is flakey so it can take a few attempts. I've done the same resize a couple of years back.

urbasrok · September 7, 2017 at 5:16 AM

chewitt, Klojum thanx for your help. So booting from USB is my only option. I am trying for a few days now with no success. Will play with BIOS settings a bit more and let us see.

urbasrok · September 7, 2017 at 6:07 AM

Tried it a few more times and it worked !!!. I run American Megatrends AMI BIOS, Aptio V2.13. The trick that worked for me is to set:

- Legacy USB support to Enabled

- USB device power up delay to 5s

- USB the be seen as Hard Disk (USB, Mass Storage Devices - Hard Disk)

- Boot order needs to be set in two places; Main menu of Boot options where you set the order of devices: USB, Hard Disk . But since we have set the USB to be recognized as Hard Disk, you also need to set the order in which Hard Disks are booted. There is a line below, something like HDD Boot order. Here you have to set the USB Hard disk to have priority over built in SATA disk.

Took me a week, but finally I managed to upgrade to latest LibreELEC.

Thank you.

**chewitt** · September 7, 2017 at 4:01 PM Official Post

Nice. I have a pre-production board (no case, just the board) and the BIOS really is fragile and finnicky. Apart from that it was a great device to use for a long time. It's a shame Xtreamer turned into a bunch of GPL violators.