Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 12:25:10 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Spidey <beaupran@JSP.UMontreal.CA>, Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> Cc: Question=answer <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Melting 2 partitions into 1, again Message-ID: <19980718122510.E337@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980717075339.14231D-100000@outpost.nada.org>; from Spidey on Fri, Jul 17, 1998 at 08:00:44AM -0400 References: <356DBD66.167EB0E7@whistle.com> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980717075339.14231D-100000@outpost.nada.org>
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On Friday, 17 July 1998 at 8:00:44 -0400, Spidey wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I must thank you if haven't already for the help you gave me on partition
> handling. I know it's been a while but I still need your help.
>
> Remember my HD settings?
No. Do you really expect us to?
> 1 GB DOS
> 500 MB Free
> 1750 MB FBSD
>
> Now I wish to fit in the 500 MB that is before the FBSD. Is it a different
> procedure?
>From what?
> If I would try, I would do fdisk to change to starting block, reboot
> as -s, do disklabel to reflect the changes.
Remember that there are two levels of hierarchy involved here. So far
you've been talking about the Microsoft partition table level
(fdisk/FDISK). disklabel refers to the structure within one of those
slices. If you add stuff at the end, fine, the offsets don't change.
But if you add the free partition at the beginning, your disklabel
will point 500 MB further forward on the disk, and won't find the same
data.
There is a way to solve this problem, but it definitely falls into the
"don't try this at home" category.
1. You remove partition 2 and modify partition 3 so that it starts
500 MB earlier on *and* is 500 MB longer.
2. You go into disklabel and add 500 MB to the offsets of each
slice. You may need to be in single-user mode to do this, in
which case you may also need to boot from a different system--say,
a PicoBSD boot floppy.
I haven't tried this, and there are multiple opportunities to shoot
yourself in the foot with this method. If you do try it, you *must*
first make a complete backup. There's a very good chance of losing
all your data while doing it.
> BTW, once I fitted the new sizes, is it possible to change the respective
> partition sizes in FBSD itself, later? (let's say I need more /var space?)
Currently, only if you're prepared to re-newfs the file system. There
are some ideas afoot to make UFS file systems expandible, but they
haven't been implemented yet.
Greg
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