Re: [ext2resize] Partition tables...

[Andreas D. <ad...@tu...>]

Tobias, you write:
> I'm having a slight problem understanding how ext2resize works, is it
> not meant to rewrite the partition table as well as resize the actual
> partition. I am using it to upgrade a Linux Mandrake 7.0 disk to Linux
> Mandrake 7.1 so I want to increase the size of my / partition and
> decrease the size of the /home partition. So I thought I'd resize /home
> to be 2Gb smaller, then install Mandrake in the free space (a minimal
> install) so I can umount / and then resize the / partition to be +1Gb
> and then remove the new install of Mandrake, and increase /home by 1Gb.
> But, when I do an fdisk after resizing the /home partition it reports
> the partition is still using the same number of blocks on the drive
> which I think means I can't add a partition to do the new install. I
> suppose I could solve this by using a floppy version of linux but I
> can't seem to find one that runs with libc6 (Does anyone know of one? or
> how to compile ext2resize to work with libc5?).

You will need to resize the partition manually.  Ext2resize really works
best with LVM, but failing that, you can shrink the filesystem and then
manually change the partitions with fdisk.  You will have to make the
partition AT LEAST as big as the filesystem, so what you might do is
shrink the filesystem much smaller than needed, and then change the
partition with fdisk, and then grow the filesystem to fit the new partition.

NOTE - you cannot move the start of a filesystem with ext2resize - you can
only change the end of the filesystem.  If you need to move the start, you
need to back up the filesystem, or move the data to a new partition that will
hold your filesystem, and then you can delete the old one.

Cheers, Andreas
-- 
Andreas Dilger  \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto,
                 \  would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?"
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/               -- Dogbert