----- Original Message -----
From: "Norman Carver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: [expert] Partition Table
> Laurent:
> > Well, I don't know about others but it sure was enlightening to me. Now
I
> > have to make a decision:
> >
> > Fiddle with the partition tables using partition magic to try and set
things
> > straight or reinstall the whole thing. I think I'll be going with option
B.
> > My swap space is too large and there are some other issues to contend
with
> > also. Oh well, that's what this whole thing is about. At least I'm not
> > reinstalling for a stoopid reason.
>
> I don't know what your "other issues" are, but if you have
> access to PM, fixing your problem will require <<5min of
> your time. Just queue up the 4-5 actions you need done and
> walk away from your machine for a while. Trivial to do.
Actually, PM gives you several easy options if you trust it, and so far I
have had any trouble with it. Make sure you have a linux boot disk because
if you modify or move the root or boot linux partition lilo can't load the
kernel until you rerun lilo, which finds the new kernel location, and you
need the boot disk to rerun lilo.
1. The "best" option is what Norm recommended: use PM to move (but don't
resize) hda3 and hda4 to the end of the physical hard drive, then expand
hda2 to fill the free space, then you can even use PM to make the swap
partition, hda6, and label it as a linux swap partition. You have to rerun
lilo if you do this, then activate the swap partition from within linux (the
easy newbie way is to use linuxconf).
2. Slightly easier is to use PM to shrink the NTFS partition by 128M or so,
creating space in the extended partition hda2. Then make the swap file in
this space as above. You don't have to rerun lilo, but you waste some space
at the end of your hard drive (the space diskdrake was supposed to use for
the original swap file but couldn't because it would have been the 5th
primary partition).
3. Simply deleting hda5 (NTFS) and hda2 (extended) is also an option, but
you lose NT and you get a swap file which is too big, unnecessarily wasting
disk space. The first two options allow you to keep NT, and I have resized
NT partitions with PM without any trouble (and also linux partitions!).
4. Finally, I agree that reinstalling linux is overkill. Even if you don't
trust PM, you can do option 3 with fdisk.
Good luck,
John
