resize partition with cfdisk or any other
 

Hi,
I have a Debian Etch running without X server.
My HD situation is like this:
http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/7406/imagemhy4.png

I want to expand (or maximize) my hda2 partition to add the rest of the HD (85987 MB).
But when I enter "Maximize" button I get the error: "Cannot maximize this partition"

How can I do that?

It's probably because you are running your system from this partition and trying to resize it at the same time. To do anything to a partition it needs to be unmounted. I'd suggest using any live cd and do any operations on your hd from a live distro. That way, you won't have to mount any partition.

hth

Just to add a bit of info. Use a recent live distro or your systems install disk and enter "rescue" in the kernel options. There are different versions of ext3. If the kernel doesn't recognize them they will not be used, but for resizing, the program may refuse if the filesystem has features that the kernel doesn't understand. An very old boot/rescue CD you have around may not work.

And the data gets lost using this method, right? It is not partition magic. Not sure about what program does that in Linux, although the Debian installer knows how to do it when resizing a Windows partition.

jlinkels

Read the manpage and find out what maximize actually does - or at least attempts to do.
Delete the partition, and reallocate as large as you want. Then resize the filesystem - modern systems allow online resize for ext2/3.
This is (usually) safe - but how can your data be at risk when you have current backups ???.
Which, of course, you do - don't you.

Thanks for the responses.

None of the /dev/hda partitions are mounted.
I am using the same kernel version I used to create /dev/hda2 partition.
What I really want to do is to expand /dev/hda2 partition without losing its data. Is there any software which can do that?

resize partition
 

Maybe there is a limitation of the partition.For example, the largest size of FAT32 under win2k is 32K.I think the first thing is to know what the limitation of your partition is. Some petitions have limitations.If there is no limitation, you can try EASEUS Partition Manager which has done a good job during my usage.Hope this can help you!