[gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Stuart Howard]

I have made an annoying error when setting up my new computer.
I installed Gentoo then winXP and made it dual boot, all of which has
gone fine however when I did this I partitioned my disk as shown the
theory being that I would assign space as required after all
installation. Unfortunatly I made the 4 partitions all primary! and
now I cannot make more partitions to consume the extra space.

Can I for example delete the swap and then create an extended
partition within the free space and finally create logical partitions
as required?

Can swap be assigned to an extended/logical partition?

I am being a little over cautious in asking this on list before I try
but after 3 days of compiling I am not in the mood to lose it all to
an avoidable mistake :)

Thanks
	stu

Disk /dev/sda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14          78      522112+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3              79        2628    20482875   83  Linux
/dev/sda4   *        2629        6275    29294527+   7  HPFS/NTFS

-- 
"There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand
binary, those who don't"

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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Montag, 30. April 2007, Stuart Howard wrote:
> I have made an annoying error when setting up my new computer.
> I installed Gentoo then winXP and made it dual boot, all of which has
> gone fine however when I did this I partitioned my disk as shown the
> theory being that I would assign space as required after all
> installation. Unfortunatly I made the 4 partitions all primary! and
> now I cannot make more partitions to consume the extra space.
>
> Can I for example delete the swap and then create an extended
> partition within the free space and finally create logical partitions
> as required?

yes.

>
> Can swap be assigned to an extended/logical partition?

yes, but you don't need a swap partition. A swapfile will work as fine as a 
swap partition.

>
> I am being a little over cautious in asking this on list before I try
> but after 3 days of compiling I am not in the mood to lose it all to
> an avoidable mistake :)

you can always remove the windows partition ;)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Joe Menola]

On Monday 30 April 2007 5:01:41 am Stuart Howard wrote:
> Can I for example delete the swap and then create an extended
> partition within the free space and finally create logical partitions
> as required?
>
> Can swap be assigned to an extended/logical partition?

Yes and yes...as an added bonus you can do this within your running system
#swapoff -a
(modify partitions and fstab)
#swapon -a

-jm
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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Stuart Howard]

I went brave and tried Alans method, I wanted a tidy disk :)

Not to worry but for me [dont know my error ] it did not work and
killed my XP install, so reverted back to method A essentially and
reinstalled wingaming XP so all is fine now.
I shall consider it a lesson to remember to save! up on primary
partitions next time. Thanks all for trying.

stu

On 30/04/07, Alan McKinnon <alan@linuxholdings.co.za> wrote:
> On Monday 30 April 2007, Stuart Howard wrote:
> > I have made an annoying error when setting up my new computer.
> > I installed Gentoo then winXP and made it dual boot, all of which has
> > gone fine however when I did this I partitioned my disk as shown the
> > theory being that I would assign space as required after all
> > installation. Unfortunatly I made the 4 partitions all primary! and
> > now I cannot make more partitions to consume the extra space.
>
> Easy. Use fdisk, and write down the start and end cylinders of the 4th
> partition.
>
> Then delete it.
>
> Yes, delete it. No, I'm not tricking you.
>
> Now create an extended partition using all available cylinders, and
> create a logical partition with the same start and end cylinders as the
> original one you deleted.
>
> Save, quit, reboot
>
> alan
>
>
> --
> Optimists say the glass is half full,
> Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
> Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?
>
> Alan McKinnon
> alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
> +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


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"There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand
binary, those who don't"

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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Florian Philipp]

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Stuart Howard:
> I went brave and tried Alans method, I wanted a tidy disk :)
>
> Not to worry but for me [dont know my error ] it did not work and
> killed my XP install, so reverted back to method A essentially and
> reinstalled wingaming XP so all is fine now.
> I shall consider it a lesson to remember to save! up on primary
> partitions next time. Thanks all for trying.
>

Just for the future:

When changing the partition table of a disk that includes Windows the most 
common problem ist that the NT bootloader (ntldr) doesn't find Windows any 
longer (usually it tells you that it can't find hal.dll).
At this moment Windows is not brocken! You just have to edit your boot.ini. 
Play around with it. Since ntldr can't see your Linux partitions properly the 
logical setting might not be the correct one.

My advice: Keep these files on a floppy so you can change them easily without 
writing to ntfs:
ntldr
boot.ini
ntdetect.com 
maybe others in c:\

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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Dienstag, 1. Mai 2007, Norberto Bensa wrote:
> Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> > On Montag, 30. April 2007, Stuart Howard wrote:
> > > Can swap be assigned to an extended/logical partition?
> >
> > yes, but you don't need a swap partition. A swapfile will work as fine as
> > a swap partition.
>
> True, but you're adding a layer (or more if you're using lvm) to the VM
> subsystem. The whole point of the swap partition is to simplify access to
> swapped pages and therefore make it very fast.

that does not explain, why a good swapfile is not slower than a partition ;)

>
> Moreover, a swap partion is easily reusable between other Linuxes on the
> same box and although you can also reuse a swapfile, you'll need to mount
> the partition first.

so what is the difference between mounting a partition and mounting a 
partition?

>
> > you can always remove the windows partition ;)
>
> Windows can *sometimes* save your life :)
>

hm, so far it only removed many years of my potential lifespan.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Disk partition query

[Norberto Bensa]

Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> On Dienstag, 1. Mai 2007, Norberto Bensa wrote:
> >
> > Yup. And a swapfile needs mounting and activating.
>
> and? What is the problem? The partition has to be mounted anyway, and
> activating a swapfile or swap partition takes the same amount of time.

okay...

regards,
norberto
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