Moving a swap partition?

Ahmed · 09-30-2005, 10:04 AM

Sorry that I posted this here, but I didn't know where else this should go..

I have an 80GB hard disk with Fedora Core on /dev/hda1, the swap partition on another primary partition, an extended partition (Fat32), and thus only one primary partition left.

Now I want to install either Solaris or FreeBSD on that last primary partition. Both of them have to be installed on primary partitions, so I suppose I'll need another primary partition to be used as a swap partition.

My question is: Is it possible to "move" the Linux swap partition to another position on the hard disk? I was thinking of creating a new partition on the extended partition and using that as my new Linux swap, and formatting the old one on the primary partition to use as a Solaris/BSD swap partition. Is that possible without reinstalling Fedora?

Thanks a lot

-A

-X- · 09-30-2005, 10:18 AM

Can be done. You must have an really big swap partition to install another OS on it. How big is your swap? Do fdisk -l and show that here, lets see what you have before you get started.

Anyway, swap can be on the extended. Use mkswap /dev/<whatever>, then swapon. man both for more details. Then make changes in /etc/fstab and reboot.

KimVette · 09-30-2005, 10:20 AM

Check your /etc/fstab and you will see where the swap is defined:

Code:

/dev/hdb2            swap                 swap       pri=42                0 0

You don't need to "move" any data that is on there. Just unmount the swap partition and mount the new one (man swapon, man swapoff). The man files are so straightforward that I think you can take it from there even if you're a beginner, since you appear to understand partitions. Also FYI, you can also create a file and mount the file for swap space if you prefer. You can even share a swap file with Windows if you're feeling adventurous, and if Windows is configured to used a fixed size swap file.

Ahmed · 09-30-2005, 10:28 AM

This is how my fstab looks like:

Code:

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
/dev/devpts             /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
/dev/shm                /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/proc               /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/sys                /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
LABEL=´$Á–ÁŽ:ñO‚
Â   swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/hda5		/home/bass/A		vfat	noauto,utf8,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda6		/home/bass/B		vfat	noauto,utf8,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda7		/home/bass/MP3s		vfat	noauto,utf8,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/fd0                /media/floppy           auto    pamconsole,exec,noauto,managed 0 0
/dev/hdc                /media/cdrecorder       auto    pamconsole,exec,noauto,managed 0 0
/dev/hdb                /media/cdrom            auto    pamconsole,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

I have no idea what those strange symbols mean or why they're there. Anyway if I create a swap partition using QTParted or whatever on (let's say) /dev/hda7 , I suppose the fstab entry should be:

Code:

/dev/hda7            swap          swap    defaults        0 0

Am I right? And BTW, I have a 1GB swap partition (because of 512 Ram)

Thanks again

-A

-X- · 09-30-2005, 10:35 AM

Yes you have the general idea, You're not going to do much with 1g for an OS. If you have room, maybe reorder a few things. What does fdisk -l and df -h show?

Ahmed · 09-30-2005, 11:25 AM

dh -f shows:

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1             8.5G  6.8G  1.4G  84% /
/dev/shm              252M     0  252M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda5             9.7G  7.4G  2.4G  76% /home/bass/A
/dev/hda6              18G   15G  2.9G  84% /home/bass/B
/dev/hda7              21G   11G   11G  51% /home/bass/Media

fdisk is seemingly not installed on this system because the command wasn't available..

What's /dev/shm by the way?

Thanks for the help everyone! I'll manage the whole thing soon :-)

-A

-X- · 09-30-2005, 11:38 AM

fdisk is in /sbin which root can run or if you're setup in visudo, use as a user;
$ /sbin/fdisk -l

/dev/shm if for shared memory and not on your hd.

I know you have 17+g in use on the extended partitions. Anyway you could save that data and redo your partition layout?

As root run fdisk -l maybe you have something that's not mounted.

Ahmed · 09-30-2005, 12:18 PM

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1145     9197181   83  Linux
/dev/hda2            1276        7956    53665132+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3            1146        1275     1044225   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda5            1276        2540    10161081    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6            2541        4823    18338166    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda7            4824        7564    22017051    b  W95 FAT32

That's the fdisk entry

I won't need any partition rearranging on the extended partition, I have 3 gb of unpartitioned space so I'll create the new swap there and add the rest to another partition.

Thanks a lot!

-A