Re: Disk maintenance

[Christian Lavoie <clavoie@enter-net.com>]

> On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 09:49:11PM +0000, Christian Lavoie wrote:
> > I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition.
> > That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as
> > read only won't help. (At least for the defrag)
> >
> > So as far as I can tell I need either:
> > - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right)
> > - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And
> > has the adequate tools)
> > - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it)
> > - A way to boot without any root partition.
> >
> > But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues?
> > How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs?

> Hmmm. I think you should be able to defrag the root while it's mounted
> read-only, as long as the defrag tool knows to flush the cache 
afterwards.
> You can fsck the root while it's mounted no problem.

You're right for fsck, but not for defrag. So the problem still 
stands.