transfering amongst partitions
So, I trying to convert a machine that has been dual-booting NT and Debian
for awhile, mainly because I just noticed that I haven't booted into NT in
over two months :-) I want to reclaim that lost disk space that is currently
an NTFS partition, and that's where I'm stuck. The current layout of the
drive is hda1=ntfs, hda2=/, hda5=swap, and hda6=/home. hda1 is 4 gigs, and
hda2 and 6 are two gigs each. Now, I assume it would be easiest to
re-fdisk/format hda1 to be ext2, then copy all of hda2 over, then hda6 as
well, delete everything but hda1, and refdisk to make a four-gig hda2, and
recreate the swap. Sounds easy, right? Well, therein lies the troubles.
First, I don't know of a safe way to transfer all of those files. I've tried
to use tar in the past, but had permision issues (things ended up being owned
by root). I could use dd, but that's a block-by-block transfer, right? So
the partitions would have to be the same size? cp has the same problems as
tar, and how does copying device files work? I thought I read that would
screw stuff up.
Oh, and how do I boot up afterwards? I forgot to mention that there is no
floppy disk available, so I can't just boot off of a rescue floppy and rerun
lilo when everything is schootched around.
So, I am undoubtably making a mountain out of a molehill, and I just ask that
you guys not laugh too loudly. Laughing up your sleeve is perfectly
acceptable, though :-)
TIA and HAND,
D.A.Bishop
P.S. Of course this box is running some web services so it can't be down for
longer than about 1/2 hour. Just making things easy on me B-)
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