Repartition partition?

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babbs
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Repartition partition?

#1 Post by babbs »

I'd like to do an Option 2 install (install to the hard drive) with Puppy, but the drive is formatted ext3. Is there a safe way to resize the "/" partition used by Fedora Core 3? (While I'm at it, is there a safe way to resize an NTFS partition?) If this is possible, which tool is recommended? I looked at the two tools provided in 1.0.2 and it looked like I'd have to delete the partition before splitting the space into two. I haven't tried Druid yet, but I will if it seems like it would work.

Thanks in advance!
babbs
Last edited by babbs on Sat 28 May 2005, 13:15, edited 1 time in total.

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Ian
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#2 Post by Ian »

Have a look for ' Parted '. a linux repartitioning tool, it should do what you require.

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babbs
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#3 Post by babbs »

I know, I know... I said ext3, but since I have two drives (each 20GB) in my desktop, I figured that I'd rather try to steal from the Windows drive before taking from my FC3 drive.

Fedora has parted as a part of the distro.

I'm thinking that I've done something wrong, or at least not quite right...

----

[root@localhost ~]# parted
GNU Parted 1.6.15
Copyright (C) 1998 - 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Using /dev/hda

(parted) resize 1 0.000 17408.000

(parted) print
Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-19470.937 megabytes
Disk label type: msdos
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 0.031 19468.476 primary fat32 boot, lba

(parted) check
Partition number? 1
Warning: Partition 1 is 19468.446Mb, but the file system is 17408.000Mb.
Ignore/Cancel? i

(parted) print 1
Minor: 1
Flags: boot, lba
File System: fat32
Size: 19468.446Mb (99%)
Minimum size: 14693.721Mb (75%)
Maximum size: 19470.938Mb (100%)

----

Can anyone tell me if I've done a bad thing here? Or, have I missed a step?

Thanks in advance!
babbs

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babbs
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#4 Post by babbs »

Any ideas?

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Flash
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#5 Post by Flash »

I don't know, Babbs. Maybe your avatar is too distracting. :)

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Ian
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#6 Post by Ian »

Are you running XP on a fat32 filesystem. How much free space is there on your Windows installation.

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babbs
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#7 Post by babbs »

But I like my avatar :lol:
(It reflects my multi-tasking lifestyle... Job, family and Internet...)

The drive in question is WinME... I took it offline (removed the modem from the hardware profile), and now I use it for a few games and MS Office 2000. I went in and uninstalled a bunch of programs and old files then I defragged the drive. The 20GB drive is about 75% full (about 14.7GB of 19.5GB). Thinking that the swap file is a part of the space used number, I figured that I could drop the size for the file system to about 17GB and use the rest for a Puppy HD partition.

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Ian
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#8 Post by Ian »

You should have no problems doing it that way, just repartition and then boot Puppy off the CD, run fdisk and rename the partition to a Linux native 83, then run mke2fs to format it and then install Puppy.

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rarsa
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Some options

#9 Post by rarsa »

I actually prefer QTParted Its the same as parted but graphical. You can install that in FC3, although I prefer to run it from Knoppix as I don't want to be running from the HDD while I'm resizing partitions.

Your HDD is quite full and you may have a problem resizing the partition if the files are scatered across the whole drive. The only problem is that unlike parted, Qtparted does not move files. It just allows you to shrink a partition up to the end of the last file in the partition (If that makes sense).

e.g. if 'x' represents space used by files, 'b' represents free disk and '|' represents the end of the partition and you have your files scatered as follows:

xxxxxbbbxxxbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbxxxxbbbbbbbbbbbxxxxb|

qtparted will only let you resize up to this -------------------------------^ point regardless of all the empty space in the middle.

What I've done in your case is:
  • 1.- Back up as much as I can (pictures, docs, projects, etc)
    2. Clean as much as I can from the partition to resize (temp, browser caches, downloads, backed up stuff)
    3. Disable swaps and hibernation.
    4. Defrag the partition.
    If I get enough space at the end of the drive great, I continue with step 5
    If there are still files at the end of the partition, your options are bleak: Use another tool like Magic that actually moves files, Start from scratch deleting and recreating the partition
    5. Reboot your computer with the Knoppix CD in.
    6. (Knoppix uses the HDD swap partition if you have one, it's a good idea to disable it from the console with 'swapoff'
    7. Run QTParted (It's in the menu, I think the system menu)
    8. Resize the partition
    9. Create the new partition.
That's if it is a windows partition. For Linux partitions, I create an extra partition a little larger than the actual space in use by the original partition. I copy everything to that other partition. Resize the partition and copy back.

Another Idea that I have not used is to backup your partition using partimage, resize and restore. But again, I have not tried this one.

I hope this rant helps.

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babbs
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#10 Post by babbs »

I confirmed that I hozed my windoz installation. Using John's Opera version, no hard disk (menu selection 2), I booted and successfully removed all "nice to have" files from the drive. (I copied all "must have" files prior to messing with the partition size.)

Now I have an empty 20GB drive. I'm thinking about 4x5GB partitions. Puppy getting one or two of them. Any arguements for or against doing that? (I have another 20GB drive dedicated to FC3.)

From parted:

Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-19470.937 megabytes
Disk label type: msdos
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags

Disk geometry for /dev/hdc: 0.000-19541.812 megabytes
Disk label type: msdos
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 0.031 99.914 primary ext3 boot
2 99.914 18049.500 primary ext3
3 18049.500 19073.250 primary linux-swap

/dev/hdb is my CD/DVD drive and there is no /dev/hdd.

Another novel wrapped around a simple question, I'm sorry. Any recommendations about partition sizes for the, now empty, 20GB drive?

Thanks!
babbs

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Ian
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#11 Post by Ian »

I see no problems, Puppy could have one of the partitions. If you reinstall Windows it will want C: so install it in the first partition and install Puppy in one of the others.
When you boot the CD do the same as before so as to stop Puppy mounting any of the partitions, then just use the install wizard to install Puppy.
If you have any problems just post to the forum.

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babbs
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#12 Post by babbs »

Thanks Ian, but Windows is gone for good on this machine... :twisted:

Guest

#13 Post by Guest »

If you are not installing Windows just go ahead and partition it to suit your requirements and install Puppy on the first partition hda1.
You could spend some time experimenting with fdisk in Puppy to learn how to create partitions as nothing is changed on the disk until you use the w command in fdisk to write the changes to the disk.

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#14 Post by Lobster »

Matt aka Babbs

I would recommend cfdisk in puppy as slightly easier and more user friendly than fdisk
8)

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