Re: Query about hard drive partitions maintenance
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012, Camaleón wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:47:27 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
(...)
The first is this; I have some empty partitions for storing data, and
they were created using the Ubuntu 10.04 installation (before I
installed Debian 6 on the system), and I need to know how to access them
as a user, to move and write data to them.
(...)
For static mount points, this is usually done/set in "/etc/fstab". You
basically need two things:
- Set the right permission options for the mount point so users can read/
write/whatever
- Create a mount point in your system with the right permissions
You can do these two things as you prefer, that is, by manually editing
the "/etc/fstab" file and set the mount point permissions using the
command line or using GUI tools. I prefer to do these things manually to
have more control over the steps :-)
The next problem may be a bit more difficult (or, unable to be solved).
In my primary partition, I have three partitions. I have a hardware
manufacturer's partition, a recovery partition, and, as the computer
came with MS Windows, a Windows partition, which is 84GB.
In addition to the explanation, show us the output of:
fdisk -l
So we can have an idea of the current state of your hard disk partitions.
"
:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc0000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 9 72261 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 10 1134 9029632 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1134 11352 82082604 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 11353 77825 533944342 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 11353 21733 83385351 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 * 21734 31931 81915403+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 31932 37267 42860351+ 82 Linux swap /
Solaris
/dev/sda8 42131 52329 81923436 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 52330 62527 81915403+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 62528 72726 81923436 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 72727 77825 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda12 37267 42130 39061504 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
"
Having inmstalled Ubuntu and Debian 6, I want to experiment with a
different operating system, which requires to be installed in a primary
partition (otherwise, I could instal it in one of the unused
partitions).
What recent operating system needs to be installed still in a primary
partition? Can you tell what OS are you going to install?
I want to try PC-BSD 9 (see http://pcbsd.org/ ), which, unfortunately,
apparently needs to be installed in a primary partition.
(...)
So, please advise whetehr I can now adjust the primary partition sda3,
to shrink it to 42Gb and create another primary partition; sda4, that I
could use to instal and run another operating system.
Operations with partitions are always dangerous and can lead to data loss
(always make a full backup before playing with this) and can be handled
by Gparted from a LiveCD (that is, from a non-running system) but your
options will depend on your current partition layout.
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
I think now that I may not be able to instal PCBSD on the computer, as,
with one primary partition being taken up by the Dell (computer
hardware manufacturer) Utility (74MB FAT) and one primary partition
being Recovery (9.2GB NTFS) and one primary partition being OS (Windows
7) (84GB NTFS), and, as someone else had pointed out, the Extended
partition actually constitutes a primary partition (that can be split
into logical drives), and I had not been previously aware of this, but
it is shown (I believe) by the above fdisk -l results showing sda4 to be
the Extended patrtition, and the Debian Disk Utility (which appears to
be an equivalent of Gparted) also shows, when I click on the section
that is the Extended partition, that it is sda4. The previous
information in this paragraph, relating to the other three primary
partitions, is retrieved from the Debian Disk Utility.
So, it appears that, with one primary partition taken up by the
DellUtility, one primary partition taken up by the Recover thing, and
one taken up by Windows 7, with the Extended partition constituting a
primary partition, I have run out of possible available primary
partitions (I believe that a limit of four primary partitions, exists),
so I believe that, in the circumstances, I have to abandon the prospect
of installing PC-BSD 9 on this computer.
I can, more or less, use Debian (I am still learning it, after however
many years), and PC-BSD would be a learning experience, and probably, a
fair bit of hard work (I haven't used BSD, since before GUI's), so it
appears that I will have to leave PC-BSD for a bit longer, or, get a
computer that I can dedicate to (run only the one operating system on
the computer) PC-BSD.
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
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