Repartition question

Repartioning running HD

[satimis]

Hi folks,

I need to repartition the existing HD which is only running FedoraCore3

# df -hT

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2  ext3  20G 3.6G 15G 20% /
/dev/hda1  ext3  99M 14M 80M 15% /boot
none   tmpfs 125M  0 125M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda5  ext3  17G 2.4G 14G 16% /home

# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot  Start   End  Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 *   1   13  104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2    14  2563 20482875 83 Linux
/dev/hda3   2564  2690  1020127+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4   2691  4865 17470687+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5   2691  4865 17470656 83 Linux

I'm prepared to repartition /dev/hda5 into 3 partitions for

a partition (3G) for LFS (Linux From Scratch)
a partition (2G) for holding the image of Live CD created from LFS
/home (balance)

1) Shall I shrink the Extended partition, /dev/hda4? How to do it?
2) What shall be the appropriate steps to do the job? With "fdisk" OR with "parted" OR other ways? Any document/article referred to?

Please advise. TIA

B.R.
satimis

[AbsintheSyringe]

Simply use fdisk, resize your partition, make sure you check everything's altered the way you wanted before writing. That's all.

[mcavic]

fdisk doesn't resize partitions... It obliterates them. I've never used parted [gnu.org], but it should let you resize without destroying.

[anshul]

Or use Partition Magic?

[satimis]

Hi folks,

Tks for your advice. Problem solved as follows;

1) boot into Single User Mode
2) mkdir /home2 && cp -ar /home/* /homme2/
3) fdisk /dev/hda
delete /dev/hda5
create 3 new partition namely /dev/hda5, /dev/hda6 and /dev/hda7

4) reboot PC and let it boot to "Single User Mode" automatically
(remark: i.e. until the PC prompted at warning requesting to run "fsck"

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda5
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda6
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda7

5) cp -ar /home2/* /home/

6) Edit /etc/fstab

It is done.

Tks

B.R.
satimis

[anshul]

Hii all, I also felt the need when my hdd crashed and I bought new one and now want to resize partitions, my vendor created. May I resize partition that contain Windows OS using PartitionMagic? I fear losing data and Windows boot failure!