Saifi Khan wrote: > On Sun, 23 Dec 2007, Namita Iyer wrote: > > >> Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:21:04 +0530 >> From: Namita Iyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Reply-To: <[email protected]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [twincling] merging partitions >> >> Saifi Khan wrote: >> >>> Hi all: >>> >>> How does one merge two partitions on a single disk, >>> given the layout as shown below. >>> >>> /dev/hda1 /base ext3 8 GB >>> /dev/hda2 /boot ext3 256 MB >>> /dev/hda3 swap linux-swap 2047 MB >>> /dev/hda4 / reiserfs 9 GB >>> >>> The two partitions that i want to merge are >>> /dev/hda1 /base >>> and >>> /dev/hda4 / >>> >>> Any suggestions on how this can be accomplished ? >>> >>> >>> thanks >>> Saifi. >>> >>> >> Hi Saifi, >> >> A partion is a contiguous area on the disk. >> The partitions you are trying to merge are non contiguous areas. >> That is the first reason why you cannot merge these partitions. >> >> Secondly, when you say 'merge' do you want to keep the data intact ? >> That is not possible in your case because the filesystems >> on the two partitions in your case are different. >> Neither FS can interpret metadata of the other >> even if they are contiguous. >> >> Namita >> >> > > Hi Namita: > > Is the following approach possible: > > . format /dev/hda1 to ReiserFS file system > . append /dev/hda1 to /dev/hda4 > > What i had in mind was that shifting /dev/hda1 to append > to /dev/hda4 should cause change in offset boundaries for > the partition. > > This can be fixed by re-running grub-install. > > What are your thoughts ? > > thanks > Saifi. > Hi Saifi,
The partition table keeps information in terms of starting LBA and size in sectors. So, a partition can contain only contiguous sectors. Some googling returned results about merging partitions with gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/). You can check that out. Namita
