using flash drive for /home directory?

tuneout · 12-29-2005, 01:00 PM

my setup is this: i've got windows XP installed on a 60GB harddrive (family insists, and i've tried resizing the partition, to no avail) so i installed a second harddrive. problem is, this hd is only 5.4gb, and i've got debian 3.1 sarge installed on there. it fits, and doesn't go too slow, which is awesome. problem is, occasionally files build up (i'm assuming it's my music, since when i remove it, the problem goes away) and suddenly i'm not able to log in. i then have to go in as root and either delete/move to a flashdrive all those files. this is getting to be a pain. my question is, is it possible to mount my flashdrive at boot and have it used as my /home directory, or at least as part of it, like, have some folders on it (like media, etc) so that i don't run into this problem?

Mara · 12-29-2005, 03:24 PM

It's possible, no problems here. Just edit /etc/fstab (you probably already have an entry for the flash drive), make it use /home (or /home/user/somedir) as mounpoint.

michapma · 12-29-2005, 04:36 PM

You may be taking the hard route. If you're going to work with Windows, it's possibly worth investing in a program that will do a lot of the things that Windows can't do for itself. For a quick fix, you can use for example the trial version of Partition Magic, which is a very useful Windows tool and quite capable of resizing NTFS partitions.

http://www.soft32.com/download_151.html

If you use the flash drive, I would definitely consider mounting only a directory and not all of /home. You could even mount it on a point independent of /home, just any name you like (maybe /mymusic).

I'd also consider asking around and seeing if you can't get your hands on a bigger secondary drive. I bet you can pick up a used 20-40GB drive surprisingly cheap.

coyopil · 01-01-2006, 07:22 AM

If you want to resize this partition you must first defrag it WITHOUT optmization for faster program start. Then you get all files moved to the beginning and you can resize it. - FAT anyway..
OR: put the download directory of whatever program you use for downloading music or film on the 60 gb XP partition, that's only fair..
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