ok so i have a win XP and suse 8.2 dual boot.
now i wanted to transfer some of my windows HD space to linux...so i used partition magic to unallocate space from the XP partition and then i used suse's partitioner to allocate that space as an EXT 3 format at the mount point /usr. now i know i messed up somewhere here...'cause apparently all my executables are not working incuding the console terminal.
is there neway i can fix this?i might as well add that my X is not working either so i am using only the console now.
thanks

I'm not sure exactly what you did but I'm thinking maybe you're mounting a new empty partition over /usr. To see if this is the case you can use the command mount with no arguments. You will see a list of mounted filesystems. If you see the new partition being mounted at /usr then that is indeed what is happening. If so you can try the command (as root) :

# umount /usr

With luck you'll have your files back.

If this is works you should then edit your /etc/fstab file and comment out (initial #) the line mounting the new partition at /usr.

Tim

If you made it a new partition with the label (mount-point)/usr you probably did just as the above post suggests. If you know the partition number of the new partition, you can umount it as /dev/hdXx. This would be "safer" than using a volume name. Then e2label the partition to something else--say /usr2-- if you are planning to extend or copy /usr to it.

If it refuses to umount because it is busy, boot up to the partition magic and relabel the volume. Then, you will have to edit /etc/fstab (check /etc/mtab as well).

After changing the label on the volume you may want to reformat it to be sure everything is OK. That is, unless you already put some new files in there.

There should be no damage to the existing /usr unless you did something you didn't say.