I'm using GRUB with a single partition (besides the swap one).

I want to create a new partition in order to experiment with new kernels.

I can't figure out whether it is possible to create the space for a new partition by resizing my existing partition, without loss of data.

Yast's partitioner doesn't seem to want to, but then I read that it is just a front end for Parted, a program which allows resizing. Is it something to do with the need to mount and unmount filesystems, perhaps? SuSE uses ReiserFS.

Ideas appreciated...

"I want to create a new partition in order to experiment with new kernels."

You can install multiple kernels on the same Linux system. You can set GRUB up to have all of your kernels in the selection menu and boot into whichever one that you want.

You only need seperate partitions if you want to have multiple complete OSs.

"Yast's partitioner doesn't seem to want to, but then I read that it is just a front end for Parted, a program which allows resizing. Is it something to do with the need to mount and unmount filesystems, perhaps? SuSE uses ReiserFS."

You cannot resize the partition that you are running on. If you want to resize or rearrange the partition(s) I suggest that you boot a rescue CD and use command line parted. (Personally, I prefer fdisk.) Common sense says to back everything up before you try to resize the partition. Once you have it backed up to CD or whatever then whether you resize the existing partition or wipe the hard drive, partition, and restore your backed up system is up to you.


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Steve Stites

Booting from a liveCD, you can use resize_reiserfs and fdisk (or parted, if you're so inclined) to resize your partition. I've resized reiserfs before, and it worked quite well.

(Deleted post).
Just re-read, and my post was merely muddying the waters....

Thanks guys.

I think in my case trying to partition and keep data is probably just asking for trouble.

Especially since booting alternative kernels is in fact possible in GRUB - thanks for that intelligence, jailbait. I am going to try that route instead.

Thanks again all three of you.

IMHO it always is.
I *never* screw around with partitions, without at least two different backups, on different media. It's my data that's important - and my time, if I have to spend ages recovering.
If you want/need to play, go buy another disk, and only partition what you need - leave the rest unallocated, for another time. Has always served me well.
And to make sure I don't "finger check", I never have two disks the same size.
When I'm in fdisk (or whatever) I want to *know* what disk I'm about to trash - too easy to make a mistake at some ungodly hour of the night/morning otherwise.

Or just avoid using fdisk in the middle of the night.

Of course, I do my best work at around 2 am.

Yeah, and I've done most of my best diagnostic/recovery work around then too ....

At least fewer people bother you at 2 am. That's always one of my favorite parts... not having to deal with people while I'm in the middle of something.

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only partition what you need - leave the rest unallocated, for another time
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Suppose you have a few gigs, say 15, just lying around your HD without being used....

How do you create 2 partitions from the 15 gigs of available space?

Currently, I have one partition with FAT(winXP), and 2 other NTFS partitions for data, plus one linux partition. I'm trying to create a FAT partition of around 5 gigs so I can share with linux/windoze and another 10 gig partition to be used by linux.

Anyone know how to enlarge the windoze partition as well? I might make the 5 gig FAT partition like 2 or 3 so I can have more space for the windoze partitions while I learn how to use linux.

The major concern is how many of your current partitions are primary ?. If all 4 are primary, you cannot access that extra space, and will need to delete at least one partition (make sure you backup all the data there-in), and allocate all the free space as an extended partition. Within the extended, you can allocate logical partitions of whatever size you desire. Both fdisk and cfdisk can be used to achieve this - see the man pages, and search LQ for details; this gets covered frequently. Some of the major distros have GUI disk partitioners, but I've never used one, so can't advise.
There are commercial Windows tools of course. Under Linux, parted should handle FAT, and ntfsresize should like wise handle NTFS.
Personally I don't recommend this - allocate new partitions, and use them. In Windoze it's just another drive letter, in Linux, it's just another mount point. No point risking your data unnecessarily.

I believe I have only 2 primary partitions, the windows and the linux partition, the other ones are extended partitions I created in DOS.

The reason I didn't use up the 15 gigs was because I didn't know how to allocate the space with the utility that SuSE comes with. I was used to the RedHat utility where I could pug in the size of the partition in gigabytes(or megabytes) instead of having to manually put in the starting and ending cylinder.

I will try to resize the hard drive with linux before I choose to reinstall linux for actually the 3rd time.

Which tools in linux do you recommend that's similar to Partition Magic in windoze?? I'm going to try this in a few minutes.