[SOLVED] is it possible to nondestructively re-write a GPT disk label?

muad'dib · 09-26-2009, 01:07 PM

I have a raid volume that I just expanded.

The new space is unusable completely. It's impossible to expand the existing partition to use the new space. And it's impossible to create a new partition in the new space. When I try I get this error:

"Not all of the space available to /dev/sdb appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 2929687040 blocks) or continue with the current setting?"

Obviously the easy thing would be to move the data somewhere, blow the volume away and create a new one using all the space. With 2 TB of live data though that's not something I want to do (copying and restoring would take 24+ hours among other issues).

I've come across bits and piece of threads in forums that seem ti indicate it's possible to "update" the GPT so it uses the new space. If I could do that then I could expand my existing partition.

But how does one resize the GPT table to use the new space?

If anyone has actually done this, plese let me know how.

muad'dib · 10-01-2009, 08:52 AM

It was a newbie error. Trying to use parted as "parted /dev/sdb1" instead of "parted /dev/sdb".

Using "parted /dv/sdb" fixed the problem.

As soon as I tried to list the partition table it asked me if I wanted to fix the GPT, and that was that.