Mounting a folder on a ext3 partition (instead of the full drive)
 

(in my case debian, but that doesnt matter)

Is it possible to mount a folder instead of the full drive?

i have a partition /dev/sdb5 with some folders:

(/dev/sdb5)/home/
(/dev/sdb5)/private/
(/dev/sdb5)/data/

etc, i just want to mount the data folder to /mnt/data
(something like: mount /dev/sdb5/data /mnt/data?)

would that be possible? if not, is there another filesystem which i can use to do this?

thanks :)

Don't think so ...
You mount a filesystem.

You could use the --bind option from mount
http://aplawrence.com/Linux/mount_bind.html

If what you are trying to accomplish is to give more space to (/dev/sdb5), what you can do is mv "data" elsewhere and then make a symlink in (/dev/sdb5).

Or, if it's that you need to refer to /mnt/data, do it the other way: symlink in /mnt pointing to (/dev/sdb5)/data