Reformatting /home/user partition to reiserfs procedures
 

Would an expert please be so kind as to give me a rundown of the best and safest procedure for converting my /home/ partition from ext3 to reiserfs (all my other partitions are reiserfs)? I'm running Mandrake 9.1, stock install.

1. A I understand it, I need to save my documents folder, any data folders I might have created, and various hidden files and folders such as .kde. .gnome, .bashrc, etc. What about all the other hidden stuff- which ones are vital?

2. Would it be a better idea to do something like tar the entire /home/wrc1944 (the user) directory, place the tarred file on a cd, or in a different partition (I have a 900MB /tmp partition), then reformat the /home partition with DiskDrake, and then copy the tar file into the newly formatted /home, and untar? Would that put me back to normal original state, but with reiserfs?

3. Is it better to tar the directory instead of straight copying, due to permissions etc. being preserved- I read that somewhere?

If I did that, what if I had to reboot? If I didn't have a working /home/wrc1944, how could I reboot?

I can't afford to make a mistake and lose any data from /home/wrc1944. so I really need to clearly understand exactly what I'm doing first. I'm not exactly a newbie, but I've never done this procedure before, so any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
wrc1944

I've done similar thing i.e. tar entire directory and restore things, same filesystems though.

I would recommend option2 ( the permissions *will* be saved when you tar your directory)

AFAIK the filesystem doesn't affect permissions in any ways. ( ofcourse if it is UNIX filesystem like ext2,ext3,reiser, etc.)

It would be safe to go on with option 2.

HTH