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Re: Upgrade and repartition advice



Ken Januski wrote:

Hi,

I'm about to upgrade my Debian install to Sarge. I've always done this online before but it's been slow since I use dialup. This time I bought a set of CDs for a work pc so I'd like to do the upgrade from them.

BUT, many months ago my Windows 2000 partition self-destructed during a service-pack upgrade. Since I rarely used it I just left it for dead. But now I'd like to reclaim it for Debian. My question is can anyone give me any advice on how to go about this? I'd like to reclaim that extra space for Debian and then upgrade to Sarge.

Is there a non-destructive way to add a partition? My current / partition of 4G is running out of room though my /usr partition is only 30% full and is 1 G. The recovered space is 5G. I'd like to be able to non-destructively expand the /partition into it. I assume it makes most sense to repartition then upgrade but I'm not sure. The other possibility I wonder about is just installing Sarge into the old Windows partition and then finding some way for it to also access the old Debian partition. But I'm not sure how to go about that.

Backup first. Most importantly, burn copies of your personal files - perhaps the whole /home directory - onto CDs. Optionally, also backup the whole original Debian partition using partimage.

Partimage allows you to save a compressed image of a partition in CD-sized chunks which you can then burn onto CDs. You need space to create the chunks in the first place. You also need to run it from another installation of Linux so that you are backing up an unmounted filesytem. You could boot from a Knoppix disc to do this. Alternatively, install a Debian base system on another partition.

Format your redundant Windoze partition using mke2fs with the -j switch to create a new ext3 filesystem. Install a second installation of Debian here, if that is what you have decided to do. Run partimage to create the image of your Debian partition, saving the image files on your new partition. Burn the image files onto CDs.

If you have installed Sarge on your new partition, you could now use the original Debian partition for /home, freeing up more space on the new partition.

Alternatively, as you now have backups, you could completely reformat the whole hard disc. If you do this, you might consider two installations of Sarge - a main one and a smaller one that you can boot into if you have a disaster with your main one, and for creating backups of your main one.

Hth
Chris.



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