Automated partitionin
 

Hi,

I am building an embedded system which has a requirement for dynamic change in partition sizes. Also one partition would be ext3 and other would be FAT32. Also whenever I repartition, my data should be recoverable.My question is following -

1. How safe is it to have a system where partition sizes are changed dynamically? I am asking this coz most of the partition tools warn about data loss when using the tool.
2. Is it possible to shrink the partition so that the new partition starts elsewhere, and still recover data. Please note the new shrinked partition will overlap the old partition. I have already tried to shrink partitions where the start of the partition is not changed and I am able to recover data.

Thanks in advance,
Rasool

I think you need to look at LVM:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

You can shrink filesystems and wish the data the FS uses is not at end of partition space. ext2/3/4, reiserfs has these features. Then you can adjust partition end sector. For dynamically changing partition size of last partition it is no problem, but the partitions before it would be difficult. Else while creating partitions you can put some space between partitions so that afterwards you can resize. And with LVM it's very easy to add or change blocks of sectors/space.

veerain, I am already doing what you ve mentioned. I was specifically looking for moving the start of partition to new location.
Will take a look into LVM.
Thanks guys for your time.

Rasool