Guest carl Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 (edited) I was just curious as to whether a root partition could be resized without having to redo the whole harddrive. The reason I ask is because I finally got rid of the last of the ms products on my harddrive, and it left a 10 gig hole that I would like to fill with the root partition, since that partition is already 43% full. Any help is much appreciated! Edited March 20, 2006 by carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 If you are using Mandriva, you may be able to do this through the Mandriva Control Center, I believe under Hardware and Partitioning - though I can't be sure. There is always a risk that you could loose data however, but if you're only adding on to the end of the partition you may be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest carl Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 If you are using Mandriva, you may be able to do this through the Mandriva Control Center, I believe under Hardware and Partitioning - though I can't be sure. There is always a risk that you could loose data however, but if you're only adding on to the end of the partition you may be fine. i'm using mandrake linux 10.1, 2.6 kernel, i've tried going through the control center, fdisk, and cfdisk, there seems to be no way to expand an already installed partition, although it seems like there should be a way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 try installing qtparted via the software installer, that should be able to resize. you may need to add some sources to get qtparted in your list of installable software, so, if you haven't already, use the easy-urpmi link at the very top of this page to add more sources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 You can probably achieve that via a liveCD and qtparted. To resize a partition witin a running system you MUST umount it first, and this is not possible for your root partition. After resizing, don't forget editing /etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab to remove every trace of the old partition, and finally after editing them run /sbin/lilo to apply the bootloader changes. When using the liveCD you can do that by chrooting to the resized root partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Correct. You can resize any partiton with Mandrivas partitioning tool as long as it is not mounted. Thus a live-CD is a good choice for such tasks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 If you do resize using fdisk or anything like that, make sure the partition always starts at it's existing block, else you will lose all your data. I've used fdisk to do it all successfully when booted from a LiveCD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest carl Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 Ok, I know this is probably a stupid question, but is there an easy way to make a live cd? I downloaded and installed qtparted and was looking for some info on downloading a live cd when I ran across a turorial for making your own. Upon checking out the tutorial, I saw what seemed like 30 pages of stuff I haven't even heard about yet, and hope not to touch on for a little bit longer. Is it possible (and therefore easier) to download a live cd, or should I go ahead and roll up my sleeves and learn how to make my own? Thanks for everyones help, and for being patient with a nOOb! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 I find it easier just to download and burn a LiveCD rather than attempt to build one that may/may not work! This is because it would take me too long to figure out how to do it, than it would be for me to download and burn. I might do it someday, just right now I'm lazy :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 Slax is a superb liveCD... you can customize it by just adding premade modules to the ISO image, and tune it the way you like. It doesn't get easier than that, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest carl Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 Will Slax work with Mandrake Linux 10.1 Official? Cause if not, I'm gonna have to do it the hard way, I went 8 pages deep in Google looking for a live cd, and every page I found is charging for it, no download links whatsoever. If worse comes to worst, I guess I could burn all important info to disc and redo the whole harddrive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 There's a large selection of live CDs for free at www.frozentech.com - take your pick. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 Live CDs: www.distrowatch.com Knoppix, Kanotix, Slax, Gentoo live, ... Most live-CDs have qt-parted inlcuded. edit: spiny is always too fast for me. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest carl Posted March 28, 2006 Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 ok, i've started downloading the mandrake move cd, once i get it all and burn the iso image, i'll try resizing that partition. when i get it done, i'll let ya know how it went. thanks for everyones help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 28, 2006 Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 two comments from my side: 1 - you can't move the boundary of the extended partition (the one holding your logical partitions) afaik, and you can't combine 2 partitions on either side of this boundary If you're not sure, post your partition table here. 2 -my advice: use your 10GB free partition as a new Linux partition, so you can try newer editions of Mandriva - it's up to 2006 now, or other distros, without losing your old one. BTW 10.1 is old. If it works, no worries, keep it, but lots of stuff has really been improved. Using this 10GB partition to find out if you'd like something newer is the smoothest way, without burning any bridges. If you have several GB free on your current root, after a year or so of use, it's unlikely you're going to fill that up with programs. (commercial/really big) games go onto /home/user anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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