Best way to increase root and home part sizes

colbert · 2008-08-16 07:13:55

Just want to check what means to increase size of root and home. Here's the drive with them now:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
(xp) /dev/sdc1   *           1        7649    61440561    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc2            7650        8865     9767520   83  Linux (root)
/dev/sdc3            8866       12512    29294527+  83  Linux (home)
/dev/sdc4           12513       60801   387881392+   5  Extended
/dev/sdc5           12513       12998     3903763+  83  Linux (swap)
/dev/sdc6           12999       60801   383977566   83  Linux (stuff)

Everything is backed up and I have other drives to move the /dev/sdc6 over onto temporarily. I have burned GParted LiveCD but I have never used it, would I boot into it and basically see GParted and be able to delete/edit/etc. my partitions?

Now here's where I get a bit confused: Will I have to delete root and/or home to increase their sizes? If so, what is the right way to copy root back over when I am done the partitioning? I have never copied a root back over onto the system. If I use something as simple as cp -pr, then from where would I do it? Would it be some console I can get into from the Arch LiveCD or something?

Thanks for your help!

COMMUNISTCHINA · 2008-08-16 07:33:50

colbert wrote:

If so, what is the right way to copy root back over when I am done the partitioning? I have never copied a root back over onto the system. If I use something as simple as cp -pr, then from where would I do it? Would it be some console I can get into from the Arch LiveCD or something?
Thanks for your help!

I am not too sure about the other stuff myself, but rsync is a way I read about to do backups.
It would be like
rsync [options] /source /destination

jbromley · 2008-08-16 07:41:24

If you move the sdc6 partition off of this drive to make space available, then gparted should be able to move and resize the remaining partitions to take advantage of the remaining space. This means that you shouldn't have to copy over your root and home partitions after the resize. Of course, you'll want backups of these partitions just in case.

You second questions is good just for general knowledge. As mentioned above, you shouldn't have to do this. If you do need to copy over root/home the best way is to use some LiveCD to boot your machine. System Rescue CD and grml are two good rescue/admin type CDs, but I'll bet you can get to a console using the gparted live CD. Once your system is booted with some live CD, mount your root/home partitions and your backup copy and copy over the root/home partitions from your backup. Something as simple as cp -pr should work here. Once you're done copying, unmount the drives and reboot. When you reboot after resizing a partition you'll probably have to run fsck, but it shouldn't be a problem.

It's all pretty straightforward. Note that resizing big partitions might take a long time. Oh yeah, be sure to back up your partitions before doing any of this.

Last edited by jbromley (2008-08-16 07:42:15)

dhave · 2008-08-16 07:46:27

OT: From the subject line, I was sure this was spam, of the "male self-improvement" variety.

peets · 2008-08-16 14:18:09

jbromley wrote:

If you move the sdc6 partition off of this drive to make space available, then gparted should be able to move and resize the remaining partitions to take advantage of the remaining space. This means that you shouldn't have to copy over your root and home partitions after the resize. Of course, you'll want backups of these partitions just in case.
You second questions is good just for general knowledge. As mentioned above, you shouldn't have to do this. If you do need to copy over root/home the best way is to use some LiveCD to boot your machine. System Rescue CD and grml are two good rescue/admin type CDs, but I'll bet you can get to a console using the gparted live CD. Once your system is booted with some live CD, mount your root/home partitions and your backup copy and copy over the root/home partitions from your backup. Something as simple as cp -pr should work here. Once you're done copying, unmount the drives and reboot. When you reboot after resizing a partition you'll probably have to run fsck, but it shouldn't be a problem.
It's all pretty straightforward. Note that resizing big partitions might take a long time. Oh yeah, be sure to back up your partitions before doing any of this.

jbromley, you give quality answers. Furthermore, you could use your Arch install cd as the "rescue" disk. It has all the tools you need to mount your partitions and copy files. But you shouldn't have to do that if gparted works.

jbromley · 2008-08-16 21:34:07

Cool, I wasn't sure about it since it's been a long time since I've used an Arch CD. I also mentioned the others because they have a much fuller suite of useful tools than what comes on the Arch CD. Unless the Arch CDs are now radically different, I imagine this is still the case. Anyway, it's good to know.

colbert · 2008-08-18 00:51:34

Thanks so much fellas, it worked great! I had a problem on booting up after since my fstab had UIDs, changed to fixed device paths and it's fine now! GParted LiveCD is awesome! I actually just deleted the XP partition and resized the root backwards to the beginning, and home backwards as well so didn't even need to copy anything up or whatnot.

(However I could not locate a shell on the Arch LiveCD).

Thanks again!

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-16 07:13:55

Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#2 2008-08-16 07:33:50

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#3 2008-08-16 07:41:24

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#4 2008-08-16 07:46:27

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#5 2008-08-16 14:18:09

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#6 2008-08-16 21:34:07

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

#7 2008-08-18 00:51:34

Re: Best way to increase root and home part sizes

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