How to delete/resize partitions?

sirius57 · 12-04-2007, 10:06 AM

I have a multi boot box and want to delete hda6 and the fedora partitions. I was trying to install the nvidia driver in hda6 and sax2 gave errors and I can not get to the desktop. I then decided to reformat hda6 and reinstall suse 10.0 32 bit. Can that be done without distrubing the hda7 partition? Or is it better to use the working suse partition in hda7 and delete/resize partitions, then install suse 32 bit?

hda1 windows
hda2 fedora? not working
hda3 fedora? not working
hda4 extended
hda5 swap
hda6 (the damaged partition) suse 32bit
hda7 I am guessing the suse 10.0 64 bit partition

Originally, I had installed fedora core 1 after windows, then suse 32 bit and finally suse 64 bit. When I used the partition formatter in the suse installer, I chose to delete hda6 to make room for the reinstall. Then I noticed that hda7 was swallowed (disappeared) up by the proposal in deleting and reformatting hda6. I chose to abort unitl I could find out what was going on. How can I reformat and install on just the hda6 partition?

pljvaldez · 12-04-2007, 11:05 AM

Typically I use the GParted Live CD to do all my resizing and formatting.

The most likely problem you'll have by keeping hda7 is if you change the number of partitions preceding it. For example, say you delete hda2 & hda3 and merge them into one partition. Then you fstab for the suse 10 64-bit would be messed up since now it would be hda6, not hda7. And it would reference swap, which was hda4 instead of hda5. See what I mean? But you can fix that from a live CD by chrooting into the hda7 partition and modifying the /etc/fstab.

sirius57 · 12-04-2007, 05:07 PM

I read the gparted docs and have the iso file. I understand what you were refering to about deleting partitions. Can you give me a suse specific example of editing a line referencing a partition change in the fstab file so I can follow that example?

pljvaldez · 12-04-2007, 05:36 PM

For example, say your fstab looks like this:

Code:

/dev/hda7  	/  	          ext3  	defaults                1 1
/dev/hda1 	swap 	          swap 	        defaults 	        0 0
/dev/hda2 	/mnt/WinXP 	  ntfs-3g 	defaults 	        0 0
/dev/hda3  	/mnt/old-suse  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/hda4  	/mnt/documents    ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/hda5  	/mnt/stuff1  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/hda6  	/mnt/stuff2  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/cdrom 	/media/cdrom 	  auto 	        ro,noauto,user,exec 	0 0
/dev/fd0 	/media/floppy 	  auto 	        rw,noauto,user,sync 	0 0

Okay, so if you delete hda3 & hda4, and merge them, then your partition table would be like

Code:

/dev/hda1   swap
/dev/hda2   WinXP partition
/dev/hda3   New partition
/dev/hda4   /mnt/stuff1 (old /dev/hda5)
/dev/hda5   /mnt/stuff2 (old /dev/hda6)
/dev/hda6   / (old /dev/hda7)

So you would have to change all the references in your old /etc/fstab to the new locations, like this

Code:

/dev/hda6  	/  	          ext3  	defaults                1 1
/dev/hda1 	swap 	          swap 	        defaults 	        0 0
/dev/hda2 	/mnt/WinXP 	  ntfs-3g 	defaults 	        0 0
/dev/hda3  	/mnt/merged  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/hda4  	/mnt/stuff1  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/hda5  	/mnt/stuff2  	  ext3  	defaults  	        0 0
/dev/cdrom 	/media/cdrom 	  auto 	        ro,noauto,user,exec 	0 0
/dev/fd0 	/media/floppy 	  auto 	        rw,noauto,user,sync 	0 0

sirius57 · 12-05-2007, 08:32 AM

Would I also have to edit the grub loader? I remember when I installed fedora, it installed lilo and I had to use the super grub loader to boot suse and fix grub.

pljvaldez · 12-05-2007, 10:44 AM

Ah yes, probably. You'll probably have to change the line root=(hd0,6) to (hd0,5).

sirius57 · 12-05-2007, 01:07 PM

In my first post I mentioned about using the suse install disk to look at my current partitions. Going by memory, one partition had a '/' next to it and another had 'boot'. Example:
hda3 ext3 /
hda7 reisfrs boot
I will have to look at my partitions tonight to see what partitions have the '/' and 'boot'. If I delete a partition with either one next to it, am I deleting a partion that will prevent booting?

To summarize, I am going to delete:
hda2
hda3
hda6
At which point I end up with
hda1 = windows
hda2 = the extended partition
hda3 = swap
hda4 = the working hda7 suse partition. The remaining windows and suse partitions retain their disk size and I end up with unused space from the deleted partitions. At which point I can reinstall the suse 32 bit os that was damaged and let it install its gub loader?

pljvaldez · 12-05-2007, 01:56 PM

It's possible. It depends on whether the install left on the drive is the one that installed grub to the MBR. But I would definitely be careful about that. Not that you can't recover using a live CD that contains grub... But I would be careful about the one with /boot because it might contain the kernels for your working Suse install.

sirius57 · 12-06-2007, 01:13 PM

I think that fedora has two partitions for root and boot. After the fedora install, I had to use super grub disk and edit the grub.conf file in hda7 to get suse to boot. I think to verify which partition is what to use super grub disk and manually boot each partition and see what boots. I was able to get the hda6 partition to boot to the desktop by installing the correct nvidia driver. I used a usb stick to transfer the driver and in text mode as root, installed it. I then was able to run sax2. I did think at first that I had corrupted the kernel by installing the wrong driver, but that was not the case. Now that I have the broken partition fixed, I am thinking of resizing them with gparted and use the space the fedora partition is taking up. Can gparted merge partitions?

pljvaldez · 12-06-2007, 01:36 PM

I don't think it can merge. I think you have to delete and then create a new one. But you can certainly resize them (i.e. merge them with empty space).