Change partition type

[ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk]

Hi,

When I installed Mandriva (2007.0)[1], I had an external Firewire
drive attached, which is formatted as NTFS. This now gets mounted
read-only, as I suppose is reasonable. My question is, can I use the
partitioning tool to convert that drive to ext3 without losing the
contents, or is the conversion process destructive? It will take me a
while if I have to back up a 300Gb drive to DVDs!

Thx.

1. Very pleased with Mandriva, so far. I'm in the middle of
downloading 2007.1; is there much to be gained by upgrading? And can
anyone tell me if I can do that without losing my existing settings?

[chuck]

You could wait for 2008. I read that 2008 will write to NTFS.

[Bit Twister]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:04:39 -0700, ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When I installed Mandriva (2007.0)[1], I had an external Firewire
> drive attached, which is formatted as NTFS. This now gets mounted
> read-only, as I suppose is reasonable. My question is, can I use the
> partitioning tool to convert that drive to ext3 without losing the
> contents, or is the conversion process destructive?

It is destructive.
If drive is only half full, you could defrag then shrink it.
Then create ext3, format, then copy ntfs files to ext3 partition.
Then delete ntfs, create/format remaining space and copy files onto
new partition. You then decide what to do with partition.

> It will take me a while if I have to back up a 300Gb drive to DVDs!

And what would you do if the drive dies as you read this message.
How happy will you be if you screw up dinking the drive partitions.

> 1. Very pleased with Mandriva, so far. I'm in the middle of
> downloading 2007.1; is there much to be gained by upgrading?

Seems to run faster for me. Downside is mouse pointer can be offset
by half of display size. One or more logins are required to sync
pointer to screen position.

I have only seen one other person complain about that problem months ago.

> And can
> anyone tell me if I can do that without losing my existing settings?

Yep, you can.
And what would you do if the linux drive dies as you read this message.

Create/format another ~10 gig partition. boot rescue cd
in rescue mode, create mount points, copy current install into new
partition. Modify new copy fstab to use new partition.
boot current install, change boot loader to load backup, boot backup and do the
upgrade. That way you will not lose "existing settings". :-D

I keep an admin diary of where/what/how whatever was changed to new value.
That way new installs go pretty fast.

I alwasy recommend a clean install. I have several ~10 gig partitions
which I use for new installs. That allows me to multi-boot the old one
if I have problems or need to find a setting I forgot to document.

You might want to read
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandrake/msg/d9f071181aabe252

[ray]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:04:39 -0700, keith wrote:

> Hi,
>
> When I installed Mandriva (2007.0)[1], I had an external Firewire
> drive attached, which is formatted as NTFS. This now gets mounted
> read-only, as I suppose is reasonable. My question is, can I use the
> partitioning tool to convert that drive to ext3 without losing the
> contents, or is the conversion process destructive? It will take me a
> while if I have to back up a 300Gb drive to DVDs!

Assuming your intent is to be able to write to the drive, it is not
necessary to reformat it. Simply install the ntfs-3g package - that will
write to an ntfs partition.

>
> Thx.
>
> 1. Very pleased with Mandriva, so far. I'm in the middle of
> downloading 2007.1; is there much to be gained by upgrading? And can
> anyone tell me if I can do that without losing my existing settings?

Do an 'upgrade' rather than a fresh install. I'd backup first,

[ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk]

On 24 Aug, 13:49, Bit Twister <BitTwis...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:04:39 -0700, ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk wrote:
> > It will take me a while if I have to back up a 300Gb drive to DVDs!
>
> And what would you do if the drive dies as you read this message.
> How happy will you be if you screw up dinking the drive partitions.

You are absolutely right, of course. And as I used to work in PC
Support, I have asked many many people "So, where are your backups?"
when their drive died. I'm only being lazy because this is my own
desktop machine :)

I'll go find some blank discs. Actually, I could just get another
external drive - they're pretty cheap these days, for the sort of size
I want...

> > 1. Very pleased with Mandriva, so far. I'm in the middle of
> > downloading 2007.1; is there much to be gained by upgrading?
>
> Seems to run faster for me. Downside is mouse pointer can be offset
> by half of display size. One or more logins are required to sync
> pointer to screen position.
>
> I have only seen one other person complain about that problem months ago.
>
> > And can
> > anyone tell me if I can do that without losing my existing settings?
>
> Yep, you can.

Thanks for the input, and the tips.

[ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk]

On 24 Aug, 15:45, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>
> Assuming your intent is to be able to write to the drive, it is not
> necessary to reformat it. Simply install the ntfs-3g package - that will
> write to an ntfs partition.

Now _that's_ interesting! OK, I've found the package, and installed
it. How do I tell Mandriva to use it when mounting this (or any other
NTFS) drive?

[Bit Twister]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:30:05 -0700, ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk wrote:
>
> Now _that's_ interesting! OK, I've found the package, and installed
> it. How do I tell Mandriva to use it when mounting this (or any other
> NTFS) drive?

You might want to play around in the task bar, say
System ->Configuration->Configure Your Computer->Mount Points-->
Create, delete and resize hard disk partitions

Click Toggle to expert mode (bottom center screen)
Click your firewire drive tab (top left)
click your NTFS partition
Click Options (Left midscreen)
and see what you can see.

[David W. Hodgins]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:04:39 -0400, <ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk> wrote:

> When I installed Mandriva (2007.0)[1], I had an external Firewire
> drive attached, which is formatted as NTFS. This now gets mounted
> read-only, as I suppose is reasonable. My question is, can I use the

You cannont change the filesystem type, without copying the data,
and then restoring it.

I'm using the "captive" package, which uses the drivers from the
windows partition, to access the drive r/w. My fstab has
/dev/hda13 /var/mnt/hda13 captive-ntfs defaults,noauto 0 0

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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[ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk]

On 24 Aug, 16:49, Bit Twister <BitTwis...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:30:05 -0700, ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk wrote:
>

> > <about using ntfs-3g driver>

>
> You might want to play around in the task bar, say
> System ->Configuration->Configure Your Computer->Mount Points-->
> Create, delete and resize hard disk partitions
>
> Click Toggle to expert mode (bottom center screen)
> Click your firewire drive tab (top left)
> click your NTFS partition
> Click Options (Left midscreen)
> and see what you can see.

I have it all up and running perfectly now - thanks. The only change
I had to make was to chmod the ntfs-3g binary in /usr/bin to setuid
root.

The only minor annoyance is that on boot, I get a warning telling me
that I have a 'deficient' version of Fuse, and suggesting version
2.6.0 or later, except for 2.6.2 which has a problem. According to
the package manager, I actually have 2.6.3 installed. Any ideas about
how to get rid of the warning?