When Waye-Ian CHIEW wrote, I replied: A utility to pack the current content of a filesystem to one end (or the other, or the center) of its space would be possible for each filesystem type, but a general tool would be extremely difficult (probably impossible). For example, the original UNIX file system had all i-nodes at the beginning of the slice and allocated content blocks as near as possible to the i-nodes, the Berkely file-system, on the other hand, scatters sets of i-nodes accross the file-system space, and I suspect that the linux filesystems have other differences in detail - and we haven't even considered MSDOS, W$95 (which has at least two flavors), OS/2, etc. I have a spare ~400 Mb disk that I use in conjunction with cpio and gzip to handlew these situations. A spare HD is probably the best $100 you'll ever spend.
> > Hello! > > > I'm presently trying to shuffle and resize several partitions on a disk > device > > without losing data. > > My answer to this is NOT authoritative, that is, I haven't looked > at the code. However, in general, partitioning doesn't move data > about; it merely updates a small file which delineates the sets > of diskblocks that comprise each partition. > > The filesystem lays > out the the blocks of its partition in accordance with it's policy > - the filesystem on /proc is very different to those on /usr, or > /, or /var which are in turn very different from that on /msdos. > The *nix data partitions (/, /usr, /var, etc.) are layed out with > a set of i-nodes at the beginning of the partition (or sets of > i-nodes scattered throughout) each of which point to the individual > blocks (or sets of blocks) which hold the file. The policy (or > format) for msdos is very different, and unknown to me, as are > the formats of /proc, etc. > > Yes -- and I'm looking for filesystem-specific tools that will shrink an > ext2fs > and a vfat partition. > > But wouldn't resizing be simple to do in principle? (Defragment the > filesystem and > move everything to the front of the partition, then change the total number of > blocks in the superblock?) > > > Can the ext2fs resize itself? > > That is, can the filesystem shrink or grow in size to accommondate a > resized > > partition? Is there a tool to do this? > > > > Can the ext2fs move itself? > > If the whole filesystem is moved up or down (relative to the start of the > > partition), will it still work? > > Thus partitions aren't easily moved or combined without foreknowledge of > the > format of the content. Thus, you need to backup each of the partitions > involved, re-partition, and restore the backups to the now empty, new, > partitions. HTH. > > Unfortunately, the problem over here is that backup isn't really feasible. > (It's also, theoretically, a very redundant operation.) > > And wouldn't _moving_ also be simple to do in principle? (Make all filesystem > references to disk blocks relative to the superblock, not the start of the > disk.) > > -- Ian!! > Pobody's nerfect! > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ----------------------------------------- Ralph Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mary bought a pair of skates upon the ice to frisk now wasn't that a crazy way her sweet young *? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
