Help activating available disk space, please.

Mike McCarty mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net
Wed Dec 14 00:06:08 UTC 2005


Nat Gross wrote:
> On 12/13/05, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>>Nat Gross wrote:
>>
>>>Hi;
>>>When I think of disk partions, I shiverrrrrrrr. BUT, I need to make
>>>use of disk space I know I have but need to make this safely. Please
>>>adivse.
>>>Following, is the result of fdisk -l:
>>>=======================
>>>Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
>>>255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
>>>Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>>>
>>>   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks        Id       System
>>>/dev/hda1   *           1          13         104391        83       Linux
>>>/dev/hda2              14        3837    30716280     83    Linux
>>>/dev/hda3            9473        9726     2040255     82   Linux swap / Solaris
>>>/dev/hda4            3838        9472    45263137+   5  Extended
>>>/dev/hda5            3838        8102    34258581    83   Linux
>>>

9729 cylinders * 8225280 bytes/cylinder = 80G

Start	End	partition
    1	  13	hda1
   14	3837	hda2
3838	8102	hda5
8103	9472	(unallocated)
9473	9726	hda3
9727	9729	(unallocated)

You have a total of (9473-8103)+(9730-9727) = 1370+3 = 1373
out of 9729 cylinders allocated. So you should have 11G or
so unallocated. Perhaps I miscalculated.

You only have 4 entries in the PT, so you can't create another
partition without major effort, but you can create another
logical disc (or volume if you prefer) out of the remainder
of the extended partition (hda4). That's 1370 cylinders
(8103 through 9472 inclusive).

So (1370/9729)*80G ~ 11G. And that's all the unallocated you
can get w/o complete repartitioning. This should not be difficult.
Read the man page on fdisk.

The VERY FIRST THING you should do, is a complete backup, with
verification that it can recover your data.

Also, I'd save a copy of the MBR onto a floppy.
I'd also make me a GRUB boot floppy (or LILO, or whatever
you use) and verify that it can boot your current system.

Mike
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