I need to partition my /dev/hda. I just have one drive that has all my data in ext3. its /dev/hda2. I would like to resize it so I can have separate partitions for my /home /var, /tmp, /usr, /opt directories.

It looks like this

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 255 2048256 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 256 4959 37784880 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4960 4997 305235 82 Linux swap

My question is what should I do? I am afraid that I might write over some of my data when I try to resize my /dev/hda2. because I don't where the data is written between start and end.

can anyone help me?

I can't really help with regard to the actual partitioning as all of mine tends to be done prior to the install.

One thing I will say though, and back me up here, is to back up everything. That way, if it does go titsup you won't lose anything. It may even be that you'll need to do a fresh install - but that is just an opinion and has no basis in anything resembling experience or whatever.

Good luck.

I do already have a back up. I'm just wondering if it was possible do partition the drive. Its already being used, so I imagine I have to use parted to resize it to make it smaller( but I don't know what sector to start at with because I don't know where the data is written to. unless there is a utility which lets me know what has data and what doesn't). then I have to fdisk whats left over for my directories that I want a partition for.

I'm curious to know if anyone has done this.

I still donsn't know what are you going to do...... well, I remember that Mandrake 9.1 first CD has partition utility which can resize partitions. But there are some limitations. You can take a look and try.