[TriLUG] Disk Partitioning - Help Please

[Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG]

On Sat, 9 May 2015, M. R. via TriLUG wrote:

> My Win7 Drive C: is very full; I would like to enlarge it and have taken 
> off what I thought I could .

caution: decreasing disk size with gparted on windows>winxp can make the disk 
unusable. I don't know what increasing the disk size can do in that regard 
(probably nothing, but check first).

> Most data is on Drive E:,which has plenty of space. The second partition 
> in the Extended area is what I would like to move next to /dev/sda2 to 
> enlarge it.

I don't understand what this last sentence means, but I'm worried that you are 
about to do something hair raising with your partitions, particularly since the 
partitioning is a little unusual.

#1 rule. Do not mess with your only disk.

Do you have a dd copy of this disk? If not, go buy a bigger disk. (I recommend 
Intrex; show them your TriLUG card and you'll get a couple of % off the price). 
320G is only a starter size disk now-a-days and you can't buy anything smaller 
than 500G anymore. I suggest you treat yourself to a 1TByte disk. The extra $10 
will mean you don't have to repartition your disk for a while. Run `badblocks 
-svw` before you put it into service (will take a day or two).

Partition it the way you want, with a scheme that won't take 10mins to explain 
to a person in e-mail. Mount your current disk (ro) and copy files from it. Put 
your current disk somewhere safe as a backup.

If you do have a dd copy; then repartition your current disk and copy from your 
backup as above.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) austintek (dot) com - azimuthal equidistant
map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!