Re: Partitioning after-effects (after the fact)
On 27 Aug 2001 18:54:36 -0400, dman wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 06:48:50AM +0800, csj wrote:
> | I'm planning to repartition part of my HD. Previously, I only
> | partitioned the whole drive as part of a Linux reinstallation. So I'm
> | somewhat clueless about partitions and partitioning. The tool I'm most
> | comfortable with is cfdisk. So replies which take into account this tool
> | are most appreciated.
> |
> | My question: Suppose I have hda5 to hda22. I want to delete hda5, hda6
> | and hda7 and create a new partition from the empty space.
> |
> | What would happen to my current hda8, hda9, etc.? Would hda8 be renamed
> | to hda6 (hda9 to hda7)? More importantly, can I delete a lower numbered
> | partition (hda6) without affecting the contents of higher numbered
> | partitions (=> hda8)?
>
> If you don't touch the higher numbered partitions, then they won't be
> affected other than (potentially) getting renamed/renumbered by the
> OS. I believe that the parttions will be renumbered, but that will
> only affect your /etc/fstab, nothing else. (Unlike some other OSes I
> know of!)
Not quite. It seems that the famed grub command prompt can't handle a
shifted partition. Remember how grub freaks like to brag about the
bootloader's ability to arbitrarily load kernels (the reason I shifted
to grub when I first began experimenting with Debian)?
Well, I had to reinstall grub after repartitioning. Both menu and
command prompt were MIA. It seems that grub was looking for data in a
renumbered partition. Originally I had installed from hda16 (hda14 after
the lobotomy). The problem wasn't too much of a brainer. I just had to
dig through my CDR filer for the all-too-important rescue disk.
Maybe there's an even easier way, say, a secret keyboard combination --.
Otherwise this is my note for the unwary.
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