I want to completely get rid of my windows parition and add that space to / partion

[nandowong]

I want to completely get rid of my windows parition and add that space to / partion.

I am tired of window taking up my space. I never use it anymore, expect for random videos that wont play on xine-totem or m player.

How do i go about formating my windows space and then converting it to ex3 and adding it to / partion?

[jim]

you need a 3rd party partitioning tool like partition magic.
first delete the windows partition
next format the partition as the same as your / partition.
next merge the 2 into 1
symantec bought partition magic a while back if you need help privite message me and i might be able to get you the floppy images of partition magic.

[Woad_Warrior]

before mucking about with your partitions, make sure you backup everything you might want. personally, i'd just do a backup and do a clean install and redo the partitions during the install process.

[Void Main]

No you don't need Partition Magic. 1st question, are you using LVM (Logical Volumes) or regular Linux (type 83) partitions with ext3 file systems? This task is actually quite simple if you aren't using LVM and it's not even that bad if you are using LVM (in fact LVM could actually be easier in this case considering your Windows partition is probably not right behind your / partition).

What is the output of:

# /sbin/fdisk -l

and

# mount

[nandowong]

Originally Posted by Void Main

No you don't need Partition Magic. 1st question, are you using LVM (Logical Volumes) or regular Linux (type 83) partitions with ext3 file systems? This task is actually quite simple if you aren't using LVM and it's not even that bad if you are using LVM (in fact LVM could actually be easier in this case considering your Windows partition is probably not right behind your / partition).

What is the output of:

# /sbin/fdisk -l

and

# mount

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 382 3068383+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 383 3647 26226112+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 383 2932 20482843+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6 2933 2945 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 2946 3533 4723078+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 3534 3647 915673+ 82 Linux swap



Results of Mount






/dev/hda7 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/hda6 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/hda5 on /mnt/Shared type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=000)
/dev/hda1 on /mnt/windows type ntfs (ro,umask=0222)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)

[Void Main]

What's on your FAT32 partition? Was it just a partition intended to transfer data between Linux and whatever you have installed on your NTFS partition? Or do you have another OS installed on it (win98 etc)? If you would also like to just end up with 3 Linux partitions (/, /boot, and SWAP)? If you want to keep the existing FAT32 then the absolute easiest thing you could do with your current partition scheme would be to change the partition type on hda1 to Linux (type 83) with fdisk. Then create a Linux file system on it:

# /sbin/mkfs.ext3 /dev/hda1

Then use it for something that it's size would be appropriate for (maybe /home, or maybe /var, or maybe just a /data). If you want to move that space into your current "/" partition without backing up you will have to delete hda1 and slide the other partitions to the front of the drive so the free space is after your "/" partition (hda7). Then you delete and recreate the hda7 partition with fdisk so it covers the ending cylinder is at the end of the free space (this does not effect your file system if you recreate the partition with the same starting cylinder). You can then use "resize2fs" to resize your ext3 file system on hda7 to include the new space (do this from your rescue CD). To slide your partitions you can use "qtparted" (or just parted if you don't need a GUI method). You will have to do this from a boot CD so KNOPPIX might be the best bet if you want to use qtparted. You can also use Partition Magic as fedorajim suggested but if you want to try a really nice free utility that I think works better than Partition Magic and it also will fit on a single floppy check out BootItNG:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Create the floppy (or CD) and boot it. Make sure you click "Cancel" on the first question when it asks if you want to install it or it will install the boot loader which you don't want to do. You just want to use the graphical partition utility. Note that this is not free software but you do get the full non-crippled software to try out. It's up to you to purchase it if you want after the trial period. I only suggest this because it is only a floppy sized image that you have to download vs a full KNOPPIX cd.

[nandowong]

my fat32 was meant for exactly what you quoted. to share between the two. I really need more space because if i right click on my home and see how much space is empty it shows 22mb. so I cant even install new kernels, etc, because i dont have room. I also cant burn cds because it needs 700 mb free to copy the cd image.


If i erase it and converted to ext3 and name it home, will it allow me to copy my home folder to it and work perfectly? will it let me burn cds and install software?

[BoHu]

I, too, am using a setup similar to that listed above:
hda1 (ntfs) windows 2000
hda2 (ntfs) windows "my documents' folder
hda3 (fat32) for sharing mp3 files with fedora core

hdb1 (reiserfs) /
hdb2 (reiserfs) /home
hdb3 (reiserfs) /swap

can fdisk be used to format hda3 in reiserfs?

# /sbin/mkfs.reiserfs /dev/hda3 ??

[nandowong]

I formated my ntfs windows partition and converted it to ext3.

I then copied all the /home folder to it and then tried mounting it to /home using /etc/fstab. but when i try to log on it says that it could not find /home/username and it wont let me log in.

[foolish]

There's no need to go and buy expensive windows software to do this. Really. You can't merge partitions without them, but you don't need to merge partitions.

The / partition contains everything right. And you can mount partitions anywhere in the / tree. This means, you can delete the windows partition, create a ext3 partition (using somehting like qt-parted for a nice graphical interface) and then just mount the new partition somewhere in the / tree where you need more space.

As an example, I removed my windows partition years ago, created a new partition and mounted it in my users home-dir as /home/foolish/music/, then I moved all my music to the new partition. Now I have what seems to be a music folder in my homedir, but it's really a separate partition, but you can't really tell.

[nandowong]

I think if got it to work.


I deleted my windows partition, formated using ext3 and mounted it to /mnt/data and cp -a * my /home to it. then i deleted /home from the root partition. then i mounted /dev/hda1 to /home and edited my /etc/fstab file to reflect it. now my /home has 3gb as compared to 12mb it did before.

thanks for all the help guys