ive read about the process and im wondering if it was anything like the fat16 to fat32 conversion in Windows...will any data be lost? is it more likely to be problematic since its not a fresh partition?

for some reason when i shutdown my box i always have to boot up with the cd and run ext2fsck to fix my drive because theres some kind of error

Take a look at this Google search.

that was my google search this morning, like i said i read up on HOW to do it, my ? is what are the effects, data loss?, instabilty? ect..

*edit* to sum it up, has anyone done this procedure is basically what im asking...id like to read someones experience while doing it

I just converted my firewire drive from ext2 to ext3 with no problems. I put some files on it to see if it would delete any of them. Everything seems to be working fine. The files are all working. (mp3 and mpg) If you want you could creat another small partition with some extra disk space you have, make it ext2 put some files on it, then convert it, and see what it does.

I would expect that it would work just fine. As always: Make backups first, just in case. Good luck with it. -- J.W.

just did some more reading....from my research its 95% sure you wont lose data as yoru just adding the journal part of the partition...there isnt any altering of the files

The only downside I can think of for going ext2 -> ext3 would be performance. I did notice a slight performance hit when I converted my partitions shortly after starting to use linux. When I first installed Slackware, I wasn't aware that journaling filesystems were more secure from data loss (fault-tolerant?).

You might not notice any difference at all. I was doing this on a P/200 with an ATA/66 controller card. If you do notice a small difference, I think it's still worth it.

Next time, I'll probably go with ReiserFS since I see that seems to be a favourite of many on here. It might even become a project to convert my drives before too long. Lucky thing I have a few spare drives hanging around.

Good luck,

Garry