Hrrm, I'll try to explain a bit better this time :-) I currently have a hard drive laid out like this:
hda1 = NTFS 4Gigs hda2 = ext2 / 2Gigs hda5 = swap 128 Megs hda6 = ext2 /home 2 Gigs and I want to end up with: hda1 = ext2 / 4Gigs hda2 = ext2 /home 4Gigs hda3 = swap 128 megs So my idea was, blow away the ntfs partition, and transfer everything over there, then blow away the other partitions, create a new 4 gig partition and transfer /home back. My two problems were: what can I use to copy the data without screwing anything up (I guess cp -ap will work?) and how to tell lilo where the new kernel is without booting off of a floppy (which, I guess I could probably work around). As I said, probably making a mountain out of a molehill, I'm just fairly new at this and don't want to screw up one of our web servers. The reason I want to do the "giant root partitioning scheme", is that everytime I start dividing stuff up, I run into a situation where I have plenty of space on one partition, and am cramped on another. This seems to be a simple way to avoid that :-) Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I'm gonna start playing around with it. D.A.Bishop On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 11:14:34 +0200, G.Brits said: > I will explain it my way , got a bit confused with your explination .. > > You have one hard drive lets say 10 GIG. 4 Gig for NT , 2 GIG for var .. and > what ever > > If you don't want any data from the NT drive , do the following > > Unmout the NT partition , so when you type in " mount " at the bash , it > should not be in there ( The NT partition) now you can mke2fs or format that > partition . so now you have an epty , unmouted partition . Lets say you want > to use that partition as /var. Make a directory called var2 , and copy all > of /var into var2 ... so you are copying the /var contents into a folder > var2. Now unmount the /var partition , since you did not have a /var > partition , but a /var folder , you can delete it afterwards. now mount /var > onto the empty partition , so when you are done , and type " mount " at the > prompt again , it shoul show you that /dev/hdax is now mounted as /var . Now > just copy the var2 contents into the /var partition . > > Reboot if you want to check that everything comes up fine > > Regards > > G.Brits > Linux Systems Engineer > Technology Concepts > Tel +27 11 803 2169 > Fax +27 11 803 2189 > > -----Original Message----- > From: David Bishop [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 02 March 2001 01:21 > To: [email protected] > Subject: transfering amongst partitions > > > So, I trying to convert a machine that has been dual-booting NT and Debian > for awhile, mainly because I just noticed that I haven't booted into NT in > over two months :-) I want to reclaim that lost disk space that is > currently > an NTFS partition, and that's where I'm stuck. The current layout of > the > drive is hda1=ntfs, hda2=/, hda5=swap, and hda6=/home. hda1 is 4 gigs, > and > hda2 and 6 are two gigs each. Now, I assume it would be easiest to > re-fdisk/format hda1 to be ext2, then copy all of hda2 over, then hda6 as > well, delete everything but hda1, and refdisk to make a four-gig hda2, and > recreate the swap. Sounds easy, right? Well, therein lies the troubles. > > First, I don't know of a safe way to transfer all of those files. I've > tried > to use tar in the past, but had permision issues (things ended up being > owned > by root). I could use dd, but that's a block-by-block transfer, right? So > the partitions would have to be the same size? cp has the same problems as > tar, and how does copying device files work? I thought I read that would > screw stuff up. > > Oh, and how do I boot up afterwards? I forgot to mention that there is no > floppy disk available, so I can't just boot off of a rescue floppy and rerun > lilo when everything is schootched around. > > So, I am undoubtably making a mountain out of a molehill, and I just ask > that > you guys not laugh too loudly. Laughing up your sleeve is perfectly > acceptable, though :-) > > TIA and HAND, > > D.A.Bishop > > P.S. Of course this box is running some web services so it can't be down for > longer than about 1/2 hour. Just making things easy on me B-) > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
