Increasing my /home directory
I have 4 drives in total on my system. And I want to make a logical volume which is a part of the volume group that has all 5 drive partitions. This is my disk setup:

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2611 20972826 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 2612 2734 987997+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 2735 8814 48837600 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8815 14593 46419817+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c6669

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 38913 312568641 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c0f9b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 2433 19543041 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 2434 15807 107426655 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 15808 27966 97667167+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc4 27967 38913 87931777+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdd: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x263dac44

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 60801 488384001 83 Linux

-------------------fstab file

# /dev/sda1
UUID=54aa38ac-e175-4979-92dd-43a4ec27ac79 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sdb1
UUID=b5b58938-dd30-4cda-a4fa-8afe29d34ba4 /home ext3 relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda2
UUID=806b152c-1e0d-4507-8173-1a2f7f022fa9 none swap sw 0 0



------------------output for df

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 20807184 5557868 14200676 29% /
/dev/sdb1 307663800 307663800 0 100% /home

I want my volume group to contain the 5 partitons:
/dev/sdb1
/dev/sdc2
/dev/sdc3
/dev/sdc4
/dev/sdd1

I also have a windows partition that I'm going to leave alone. I dont want to repartition any hard drive. So does anyone know the detailed commands to make a volume group that contains these partitions, so I can expand my /home directory?

Best regards

I am going to assume that you are not already using LVM.

Before doing anything, ensure you have a backup of your current /home partition!

If you cannot backup the /home partition before creating the new LVM, then leave the device for /home out of the LVM until you can mount the new /home partition and copy the data across.

To use LVM, the first thing you need to do is prepare the devices with the pvcreate command, but this will destroy the data you have on these partitions:
Then create a Volume Group with the vgcreate command:
Then create your Logical Volume with the lvcreate command:
Then you need to make your file system on the new logical volume:
Then, mount the new volume, copy the data, and change the /etc/fstab entry.

Once you have confirmed that all is OK, you can then delete the old /home partition and add it to the volume group (pvcreate, vgextend) for use later on.

You left /dev/sdb1 out of the commands because it's part of the /home directory, correct? I can include this partition since I've saved the /home data elsewhere.

Yes, exactly.

I didn't want to include the existing /home partition and have you lose your data.

If you have copied this elsewhere and are happy that it is not on any of the selected partitions, you should be safe to add the /dev/sdb1 entry to the list of partitions being passed to pvcreate.