resize existing partition w/o losing data

rebelscum · 07-21-2005, 02:18 PM

Is there a way to resize an existing partition with out losing any data on it. I remember something similar on mandrake a long time ago but I have not been able or brave enough to try it on slack.

I don't like the way my disk is set up, it's too complicated and wastes a lot of space. I have several windows as well as linux partitions and I wanted to rearrange it with out reinstalling anything. Thanks.

keefaz · 07-21-2005, 02:22 PM

I used parted once, and it worked (no lost datas)

You could install slackware parted package from /extra

phil.d.g · 07-21-2005, 02:26 PM

I don't know about resizing, most find it doesn't work correctly.

I had this same problem a few days ago and wanted to repartition my drive so I popped in the slackware installation disk 1 and booted it when I got to the prompt where you normally run setup or cfdisk I mounted both my hdds and copied everything from the 'system' hdd to my 'public' hdd (which contains mp3's, films, software for the rest of the family) I then used cfdisk to repartition my main hdd and mounted the new partitions and copied all the files back. I then rebooted the computer and booted the cd again, this time I used a kernel on the CD to boot the hdd installtion when that had booted I re-ran lilo to restore the MBR, removed the CD and rebooted and the jobs a good'un.

rebelscum · 07-21-2005, 02:56 PM

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I did a little research and found a cool looking gui called QTParted. It should be pretty simple. It's exactly what I was looking for.

dhave · 07-21-2005, 04:46 PM

QtParted is a nice front-end to parted, but you still have to be careful. I've used these tools maybe six times, and five times everything went perfectly. Once it didn't, however. Thanks to fsck and some fairly recent backups, I didn't fare too badly, but be forewarned. Back up as much as you can.

I think it's a good idea to run QtParted from the System Rescue CD. That way you know for sure that you haven't accidentally mounted one of the partitions that you're trying to resize. I find the System Rescue CD good to have on hand, anyway. You can find an iso at http://www.sysresccd.org/. When you boot with the SysResc CD, you'll get instructions on-screen about how to run QtParted.

Wiser heads don't even use these tools, but for many of us, it's hard to resist. I'm using my WindowsXP installation less and less often, and I'm always wanting more space for Slack, so I just recently resized my WinXP partition (NTFS) using QtParted. That gave me a nice little chunk of disk space for Slackware. Rather than resizing my Slack partition, which I thought was pushing it a little, I just created a new Linux partition where I stash a lot of extra stuff.

ctkroeker · 07-21-2005, 04:49 PM

Use parted, BUT BACKUP YOU DATA FIRST.

jcombs_31 · 07-21-2005, 05:55 PM

Funny, I was thinking about something similar, but I want to grab more space from my /home directory for /.

My partions are like this

/
/swap
/usr
/opt
/home

Most of the / partition is being used from images in my /var/www/htdocs for my website. Anyway, to do this, do I need to boot to something other than my root partition, like a cd as was mentioed?

I've used partition magic on windows and from what I remember it rebooted teh computer and did the partition before windows booted.

Anyway, if someone could provide a step by step or more details I'd be interested.

phil.d.g · 07-21-2005, 06:37 PM

You need to boot off of a LiveCD or slackware CD1 has enough tools to do this because you will need to unmount the root partition at one point and you can't do that if your running your OS from it

jcombs_31 · 07-21-2005, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by phil.d.g
You need to boot off of a LiveCD or slackware CD1 has enough tools to do this because you will need to unmount the root partition at one point and you can't do that if your running your OS from it

That's what i figured, thanks.