<---- template headericclude ----->
Creating a backup drive image to restore later
FedoraForum.org - Fedora Support Forums and Community
Results 1 to 5 of 5
  1. #1
    mjman Guest

    Question Creating a backup drive image to restore later

    I just posted about this, but I would like to create an image of my / partition of my fc3 installation. I want to shrink my windows partition, and give linux more room. However, there does not seem to be any programs that can resize the ext3 filesystem. Thus, I need to backup my fc3 installation, shrink my ntfs partition, create a new, larger ext3 partition, and restore my drive image to it.

    I can't seem to figure out a good way to do this. Does anyone know?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Posts
    32
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I think Partition Magic 8 for Windows will resize ext3 partitions
    Marcus Wynwood
    www.mwynwood.com
    Judge a man by his questions, not his answers – and don’t forget to add to peoples reputations!
    If Windows sucked, it would be good for something ;)

  3. #3
    mjman Guest
    nope, the option isn't available for ext3 partitions.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    1,227
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I am assuming from your post that you only have 2 partitions????

    partition #1, windows, with free space and you want to shrink it, and
    partition #2, Linux, and you want to expand it?

    (Note to the unwitting/noobs, I have not personnally used "gpartd" OR "partition magic" i do not make or imply any warranty to their usefulness. you have been warned)


    Plan "A":

    You can use partition Magic to shrink your windows partition, and then use "gpartd" to grow your Linux partition, it's available here:
    http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

    Plan "B":

    Buy a new 40-80 gig disk, 25-50 $ at circuit city/best buy when you look for their sale price with rebates, as long as you mail the rebate form in!!!


    Actually, the fastest/cheapest way might be to just by another hard drive, partition HD#2("fdisk /dev/hdb"), format it ("mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdb1") , make a mountpoint for it ("mkdir "/t"), mount it temporarily ("mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 "/t") copy over the "/usr" directory("cp -parv /usr /t")

    Then boot the "rescue" disk, but don't tell it to mount/find an existing installation!,

    create a directory "mkdir /t",

    mount your linux partition manually "mount -t ext3 /dev/hdawhatever /t",

    cd into your hard drive's root partition (now mounted on "t") "cd /t" ,

    delete the old "/usr" directory with "rm -rvf usr"

    vi the "/t/etc/fstab" file and add an entry for for your new "/usr" partition (should look something like
    this "/dev/hdb2 /usr ext3 defaults 1 0" (that will mount the primary slave's second partition on the "/usr" directory, assuming that you created and copied your ENTIRE /usr directory to this partition before starting this procedure)

    reboot (you now should have a few extra gig free on your "/" partition, and your "/usr" partition will have TONS of free space on it.....okay, only if you created/formatted a big partition in "fdisk /dev/hdb" step above

    (once rebooted, your Linux install will now use two partitions, one for everything on the "/" filesystem EXCEPT for the "/usr" directory, and one that contains ONLY the "/usr" directory)
    Only dead fish go with the flow....

    Hmmm, what did I miss?

  5. #5
    mjman Guest
    Thanks for your help guys. In the end, I installed a new fc3 installation on my external drive. Then, from that installation, i used partimage to backup the partitions of my local installation. Then, I booted into windows, and used partition magic to delete my local installation, and create my new, larger / partition. (for some reason, I cannot delete the swap partition using gparted, so i had to use partition magic). Then, I booted to my external fc3 (which proved to be difficult due to the fact that grub.conf was gone), and used partimage to restore my data.

Similar Threads

  1. backup restore and restore point.
    By F.User_4_Life in forum Using Fedora
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 12th April 2008, 12:51 AM
  2. Replies: 4
    Last Post: 20th October 2007, 11:12 PM
  3. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 19th October 2007, 04:33 PM
  4. [general] fc6: hard drive image transfer/backup
    By pcandpc in forum EOL (End Of Life) Versions
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 4th February 2007, 08:36 PM
  5. Server Image Backup / Restore (SCSI)
    By purepages in forum Servers & Networking
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 28th April 2005, 11:09 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
[[template footer(Guest)]]