hi all,

this is my first post, and I am fairly new to linux admin.

I have an existing rhel / centos 5 install, with a 650G partition for /home, which I'd like to leave untouched while I re-install the OS in / (to avoid having to copy /home from backups, which I can do if needed). /home is its own partition in the same logical volume group as /, not sure if the vol group matters.

I read the RH docs about partitions and installing, but it did not seem to address my situation, of reinstalling. I'd rather do a new install rather than upgrade (and am not sure if you could "upgrade" it to the same OS). I went through the install process up to the partition section, but could not discern with any confidence that my current /home would not be over written, and would be used as /home on the new OS. I only found one post in linux questions that was related, but it was for slackware in 2004 ("/home seperate partition from previous install, make it new /home in new install").

any advice much appreciated.

Hi,

While you're manually partitioning, the system will want to know if you want to reformat the partition or not. If you explicitly state for it to not format the partition, it will leave your data intact, no matter what else it does. Further, you can tell it how to mount the partition. Just like when making a new partition, specify that you want it to be the /home partition for the new install.

Hope that helps
Sam

thanks Sam--I'm not sure yet if it helps. I thought there should be options to do as you suggest, but did not see them. hence my confusion. but I did not try to do a completely custom install (you say "manually partitioning"). I went with the suggested partition scheme and then manually edited what it suggested. let me poke around with the completely custom option. I see from the manual that there should be a --noformat option that can be passed somehow.

basically, I want to erase / (15G) and put a new system there, but leave the old /home untouched except for being mounted at the new /home.

more later.

Yeah, if you know just what you want to do, then go ahead and run a manual partitioning. Automatic partitioning is just for those who are less familiar with how partitions should be set up. Sometimes automatic partitioning won't know to save your data. If you've already installed a linux system on your computer, then you probably already know what partitions you need.

Sam

yes, manual is the way to go, looks good. thanks Sam.