[SOLVED] Suggested resize tool

[glamdring]

So I have resized my partitions before, but this time I need to make sure I don't loose any data. I never had lost any in the past, but I need to make sure I don't break poor delicate Windows, old fragile things, because I still need it time to time for college.

I noticed I don't even boot Windows once a week, so I would like to add some more space to Linux. Currently setup as 100GB Linux 400GB Windows. It's plenty, but over time I build up a large sum of files which have already worked their way up to 65GB on Linux. Being I don't use Windows and I'm going to start recording/watching TV with Linux I would like to switch the tables to 400GB Linux 100 GB Windows.

Any particularly favored methods would be very appreciated!

-Thank You

[Old-Polack]

So I have resized my partitions before, but this time I need to make sure I don't loose any data. I never had lost any in the past, but I need to make sure I don't break poor delicate Windows, old fragile things, because I still need it time to time for college.

I noticed I don't even boot Windows once a week, so I would like to add some more space to Linux. Currently setup as 100GB Linux 400GB Windows. It's plenty, but over time I build up a large sum of files which have already worked their way up to 65GB on Linux. Being I don't use Windows and I'm going to start recording/watching TV with Linux I would like to switch the tables to 400GB Linux 100 GB Windows.

Any particularly favored methods would be very appreciated!

-Thank You

From your running PCLinuxOS installation, open a terminal, su to root, then post the results of the command;

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l                     <Enter>           <-- That's a lower case L, not a number 1

This will give us an accurate picture of the partition types and layout we're dealing with.

[glamdring]

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0ee58aa0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2          206848   723792509   361792831    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3       723792510   976768064   126487777+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5       723792573   748371959    12289693+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       757159578   976768064   109804243+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7       748372023   757159514     4393746   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[Old-Polack]

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0ee58aa0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2          206848   723792509   361792831    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3       723792510   976768064   126487777+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5       723792573   748371959    12289693+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       757159578   976768064   109804243+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7       748372023   757159514     4393746   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

The problem, as I see it, is that the partition to be shrunk is sda2, while the partition to be grown is sda6, which is physically after both sda5 and sda7. This poses a bit of a juggling act, growing the extended partition forward, then moving all the logical partitions to allow for the expansion of sda6 which is actually the last partition on the drive.

Were it my drive, I think I would shrink sda2, then create a new primary partition in the then unallocated space between sda2 and the extended partition. The new primary partition could then be formatted with the ext4 filesystem, and used as a Linux data partition, mounted at a newly created mount point directory on your PCLinuxOS installation. I have similar partitions mounted on /movies and /tv on various installations.

[glamdring]

For now I'm just permanently mounting my Windows partition and have a slew of symbolic links throughout my system. When I have the time and feel like fixing it up I will just reformat everything, start size everything up right from the beginning. All thought with the way things have been it might not be until my next break.