RE: [coLinux-users] making sparse files for partitions...

[Daniel S. <dan...@au...>]

> > I recently discovered I was running out of space on my main
partition
> and needed to allcoate a new file to host a subset of it (/usr portage
in
> this case). I checked the wiki, and it suggests using fsutil
(available on
> xp only, though ntfs supports spare files on any windows version
afaik) or
> making a non-sparse file using dd.


Actually, only NTFS5 supports sparse files - Windows 200/XP and Windows
NT 4.0 with SP6 only.

> >
> > I knocked up this util to create sparse files. It works at least in
> cygwin, so that solved the problem for me. Now I have what appears to
be a
> 1GB filesystem, using only 110MB of diskspace with a reiserfs on it
> (/usr/portage used to live on ext3 which made it occupy 420MB disk
space).

Check out the Wiki page:

http://www.colinux.org/wiki/index.php/NiceTools

scroll down to the "Colinux file utils " section. There are links to
filesystem utilities I have created for creating sparse files and making
existing files sparse. There are links to pre-built binaries for those
who don't want to compiler their own.

> >
> > have fun, YMMV
> >
> > /Anders
> >
>  <<mksparse.c>>