Re: Re-partitioning -- uh oh, I'm confusedconfusconfusconconfusedfusededed

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Ridge Chittenden wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have a machine running Debian Woody. There's one
> 120GB hard drive, /dev/hda. When I installed Debian a
> few months ago, I split the disk into two 60GB
> partitions. I figured that I'd install another OS in
> the second partition. I never did. Now, I want to
> recombine the partitions into one, big chunk.
>
> This would be a pretty straightforward use of parted,
> I assume, but here's the rub: For some reason, the
> Debian installer put / on /dev/hda1 and /usr on
> /dev/hda3. If I just delete /dev/hda3, I'll destroy
> /usr, right? That, I presume, would be bad. 
>
> So how to I handle this? Can I just mount /usr on
> /dev/hda1, then delete /dev/hda3? Or is my /usr data
> on /dev/hda3? I guess I just don't understand
> partitioning that well and I'm confused. Any
> suggestions?
>  

The installer apparently saw the two 60GB partitions and used them both; 
one for / and one for /usr.

You'll need to copy the /usr files over to the first partition.

# init 1
# umount /usr
# mkdir /oldusr
# mount /dev/hda3 /olduser
# cp -a /olduser/* /usr
# [edit /etc/fstab and comment out or delete the /dev/hda3 line]
# init 2

That should be pretty close to what you need to do. If everything works 
properly, now you can erase /dev/hda3 and use it as you like.

--
Kent