Shrinking ext3 partitions

Is there a package to shrink existsing ext2 or 3 partitions
(recovering some of the unused space for re-partitioning), without
completely destroying the original partition?

Gwen

Gwen Morse wrote:
[color=blue]
> Is there a package to shrink existsing ext2 or 3 partitions
> (recovering some of the unused space for re-partitioning), without
> completely destroying the original partition?[/color]

Yes, use something like parted or qtparted which is part of the
SystemRescueCD and many other 'Live' Linux CDs;

[url]http://www.sysresccd.org/[/url]


--
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:37:41 GMT, Lenard <lenard@127.0.0.1> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Gwen Morse wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Is there a package to shrink existsing ext2 or 3 partitions
>> (recovering some of the unused space for re-partitioning), without
>> completely destroying the original partition?[/color]
>
>Yes, use something like parted or qtparted which is part of the
>SystemRescueCD and many other 'Live' Linux CDs;
>
>[url]http://www.sysresccd.org/[/url][/color]

I downloaded/burned the System Rescue iso and booted up qtparted. It
asked what kind of mouse I was using, and then went into a
partition-magic looking screen.

The only section I could resize was my windows partition (which I
could shrink).

When I choose any of the linux partitions, the options to change the
size are greyed out.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't see any help files. I tried poking
around the qtpartition sourceforge project, but, there's very little
useful information and the forums are dead.

Gwen

Gwen Morse wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:37:41 GMT, Lenard <lenard@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>Gwen Morse wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> Is there a package to shrink existsing ext2 or 3 partitions
>>> (recovering some of the unused space for re-partitioning), without
>>> completely destroying the original partition?[/color]
>>
>>Yes, use something like parted or qtparted which is part of the
>>SystemRescueCD and many other 'Live' Linux CDs;
>>
>>[url]http://www.sysresccd.org/[/url][/color]
>
> I downloaded/burned the System Rescue iso and booted up qtparted. It
> asked what kind of mouse I was using, and then went into a
> partition-magic looking screen.
>
> The only section I could resize was my windows partition (which I
> could shrink).
>
> When I choose any of the linux partitions, the options to change the
> size are greyed out.
>
> Am I doing something wrong? I don't see any help files. I tried poking
> around the qtpartition sourceforge project, but, there's very little
> useful information and the forums are dead.[/color]

You should have the options available unless you do not have any free space
on the partition(s) or the partition(s) were uncleanly un-mounted. Check
the available space by reviewing the output from; df -h

You must have and leave (at least) 5% of the partition space free for root.

Yes, help is lacking... qtparted is a GUI frontend to parted, and from
man qtparted;

DESCRIPTION
qtparted is a GUI for parted looking (by design) like Powerquest Par-
tition Magic. While this is a work in progress and by far not com-
plete, it is already working nicely.

The manual for GNU parted can be found;

[url]http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/[/url]


--
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:52:54 GMT, Lenard <lenard@127.0.0.1> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I downloaded/burned the System Rescue iso and booted up qtparted. It
>> asked what kind of mouse I was using, and then went into a
>> partition-magic looking screen.
>>
>> When I choose any of the linux partitions, the options to change the
>> size are greyed out.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
>
>You should have the options available unless you do not have any free space
>on the partition(s) or the partition(s) were uncleanly un-mounted. Check
>the available space by reviewing the output from; df -h[/color]

[msPiggy 3] ~ > df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda9 46G 25G 19G 58% /
/dev/hda6 487M 14M 448M 4% /boot
/dev/shm 633M 0 633M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda7 11G 3.8G 6.1G 39% /home
/dev/hda5 30G 25G 4.4G 85% /win
/dev/hdc1 55G 17G 35G 32% /winex2

[color=blue]
>You must have and leave (at least) 5% of the partition space free for root.[/color]

root has 58% free, unless I'm mis-reading it.

I also have to make sure I've shut down cleanly, which I believe
occurs whenever I choose "restart computer" from the kde exit menu.
[color=blue]
>Yes, help is lacking... qtparted is a GUI frontend to parted, and from
>man qtparted;
>
>DESCRIPTION
> qtparted is a GUI for parted looking (by design) like Powerquest Par-
> tition Magic. While this is a work in progress and by far not com-
> plete, it is already working nicely.
>
>The manual for GNU parted can be found;
>
>[url]http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/[/url][/color]

From reading the notes on that page, it sounds like I can't shrink my
ext3 partition. "Parted can only shrink hfs and hfs+ file systems".
This may mean "it can only shrink, not grow the partition", or it can
mean "hfs and hfs+ systems are the only ones which can be shrunk". I'm
not sure which way to read the note.

It also mentions that ext3 file systems can be "resized", but, it
doesn't explictly say they can be shrunk.

All of this brings me back to my original problem, which is that I
need to reclaim a spare gig or two of my ex3 partition as free space.

Is there an application that will allow me to reclaim space from
formatted ext3 partitions?

Gwen

Gwen Morse wrote:

<snip>
[color=blue]
> [msPiggy 3] ~ > df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda9 46G 25G 19G 58% /
> /dev/hda6 487M 14M 448M 4% /boot
> /dev/shm 633M 0 633M 0% /dev/shm
> /dev/hda7 11G 3.8G 6.1G 39% /home
> /dev/hda5 30G 25G 4.4G 85% /win
> /dev/hdc1 55G 17G 35G 32% /winex2
>
>[color=green]
>>You must have and leave (at least) 5% of the partition space free for
>>root.[/color]
>
> root has 58% free, unless I'm mis-reading it.[/color]

You mis-read it, 58% is used. But the df -h output seems a bit off.....

<snip>
[color=blue]
> All of this brings me back to my original problem, which is that I
> need to reclaim a spare gig or two of my ex3 partition as free space.
>
> Is there an application that will allow me to reclaim space from
> formatted ext3 partitions?[/color]

ext3 is just ext2 with journalling support, parted should be able to re-size
the partition, remember to keep the start of the partition at the same
spot.

Question; Where is the hda8 partition, I see partition hda9 (/ == root) and
partition hda7 (/home), but no hda8???

fdisk -l /dev/hda


--
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005