[SOLVED] Growing the root partition

BaloneyGeek · 2011-08-08 13:59:31

Hi,

It's been about a month since I moved to Arch (from guess what, Ubuntu!). I've been a general UNIX user for about 4 years now, dabbling with various BSDs and Linices, so I should be pretty confident about what I'm planning to do. For some reason, I'm not.

Anyway, my hard disk is a 320GB one, with the partition layout:

1) PARTITION 1: Windows (30 GB, NTFS)
2) PARTITION 2: Arch (30GB, EXT4)
3) PARTITION 3: Swap (4GB, SWAP)
4) PARTITION 4: Data (~250GB, NTFS)

Now I plan to get rid of Windows (got a Desktop for that), and give Arch the whole of 60GBs. What I propose to do is remove PARTITION 1, and grow PARTITION 2 backwards to fill up the whole 60GB of space, then edit menu.lst and fstab, and theoretically the job should be complete.

Now practically, is this possible? If I grow the thing backwards, will the kernel be too high up in the disk for GRUB to access it? Is there any other risk I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by BaloneyGeek (2011-08-08 16:34:00)

Inxsible · 2011-08-08 14:01:19

Use Gparted Live:

1) Delete Windows partition.
2) Move Arch partition over before the newly unallocated space.
3) Extend the Arch partition to include the unallocated space at the end.

BaloneyGeek · 2011-08-08 14:05:02

Thanks for the lightning reply! I had considered doing it this way, but I'd really like to avoid moving the partition. Is there any way to do it without doing Step 2?

Inxsible · 2011-08-08 14:12:23

Why?

BaloneyGeek · 2011-08-08 14:37:45

Trying to avoid moving the blocks around. If they're already there, why relocate them, if the place they're at will be a part of the resultant partition anyway?

lolilolicon · 2011-08-08 14:54:50

I'm also curious if this is doable, but I think it tricky (if possible) to do the the expansion moving the starting position.

resize2fs(8) wrote:

When recreating the partition, make sure you create it with
the same starting disk cylinder as before! Otherwise, the resize operation
will certainly not work, and you may lose your entire filesystem.

This is of course no surprise.

BaloneyGeek · 2011-08-08 16:31:15

lolilolicon wrote:

I'm also curious if this is doable, but I think it tricky (if possible) to do the the expansion moving the starting position.
resize2fs(8) wrote:
When recreating the partition, make sure you create it with
the same starting disk cylinder as before! Otherwise, the resize operation
will certainly not work, and you may lose your entire filesystem.
This is of course no surprise.

Humm... I never thought of looking at resize2fs's manpages. This solves my query. Thank you all so much!

I also dare mention this was my first experience with the Arch Forums, and I must say it's been very rewarding!

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-08 13:59:31

[SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#2 2011-08-08 14:01:19

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#3 2011-08-08 14:05:02

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#4 2011-08-08 14:12:23

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#5 2011-08-08 14:37:45

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#6 2011-08-08 14:54:50

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

#7 2011-08-08 16:31:15

Re: [SOLVED] Growing the root partition

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