Partitioning woes

Edaph · n00b Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 22

Is it possible to split one primary partition in two (or more) partitions, without destroying the data on the hd? What I'd like to do is split the root (/dev/hda1) partition in two and have a separate /boot partition. All the data on /home (/dev/hda3) and /stuff (/dev/hda5) should be left intact. /home I guess should be moved on the extended partition... Can this be achieved by merely modifying the partition table, or would it require moving the data around as well?

Here's my current partitioning scheme:

blibbleage · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 3:05 pm Post subject:

Disclaimer: I'm no expert. Read the relevant manpages first.

I think GNU PartEd is what you want (emerge sys-apps/parted). Assuming your /boot directory is small and you have some free space on the root partition, you can do what you want.

- rename the /boot directory to (eg.) /oldboot

- Resize the root partition to be a bit smaller (leaving, say, 32MB for the new /boot partition).

- Create the new partition, format it and mount it at /boot

- move everything over from /oldboot to /boot.

Edaph · n00b Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 22

Thanks for the tip!

But I think it wouldn't be that straightforward (I'm not sure as I haven't tried). You can have only 4 primary partitions, of which one has to be an extended partition if you need more than 4 partitions. I my case, I've already used my 4 partitions, so I can't just split /dev/hda1 in two. I think need to move /home on the extended partition (as /dev/hda5 and shift /stuff to /dev/hda6). The contents of root partition are completely useless, as it's being occupied by the old Linux distro, which I'm going to replace with Gentoo installed on /dev/hdd1. Destroying the contents of /dev/hda1 won't do any harm. Only partitions that need to live through the change are /home and /stuff.

Regards,
Edaph