I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

ninjaaron · 2011-09-30 00:15:56

Ok. I want to try out FreeBSD. It requires a primary partition. Arch is using all four: /boot, /home, /, and extended (containing swap, Ubuntu, Debain, and Fedora).

I want to move the /boot partition into /. This is my plan:

0. Backup

1. Boot Ubuntu live USB.

2. copy the contents of the /boot partition into the / partition (in the boot folder, of course)

3. Delete the original /boot partition

4. Move the / partition to the beginning of the drive.

5. Reinstall grub to that partition.

6. Take /boot partition out of /etc/fstab

7. Pray

8. Reboot

9. ????

10. Profit (aka: get my FreeBDS mojo on or crash and burn in the process.)

Last edited by ninjaaron (2011-09-30 00:18:19)

denisfalqueto · 2011-09-30 03:30:05

I don't see any problems and would do exactly that, in your situation.

siriusb · 2011-09-30 07:48:20

In case you want to use your old config file you have to update your boot.cfg / menu.lst and apply /boot prefix in your menu entries for the correct path.

ninjaaron · 2011-09-30 10:24:22

Ah. Right. I'm using Grub2 with os-prober, so it should be able to sort that out itself... I think, and initially I'll be installing grub2 from the Ubuntu live USB, so I don't think it will actually use the Grub config files on that partition until I actually renistall it from Arch. I've had to reinstall grub waaaaay more times than I care to admit, so that's at least one program I understand fairly well.

Last edited by ninjaaron (2011-09-30 10:25:14)

R00KIE · 2011-09-30 10:38:47

I would backup all files to an external hd (or internal backup hd, which would be a lot faster), recreate partitions from scratch and copy all the files back. Moving partitions takes a lot of time and if things go belly up midway you are screwed, unless the data you have stored in the disk is not important.

skodabenz · 2011-09-30 14:03:05

I don't know if this will work but fixparts (in extra/gptfdisk package) can change a primary partition to logical and vice-versa. See http://rodsbooks.com/fixparts/#adjusting .

RichAustin · 2011-09-30 14:15:27

Personally if I was only trying it out to get an idea of what it's about I would install virtualbox and run it as a virtual machine.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-30 00:15:56

I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#2 2011-09-30 03:30:05

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#3 2011-09-30 07:48:20

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#4 2011-09-30 10:24:22

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#5 2011-09-30 10:38:47

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#6 2011-09-30 14:03:05

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

#7 2011-09-30 14:15:27

Re: I need to merge two partitions. I have a plan. Will it work?

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