Hi,

I editted my post so you can skip straight to the bottom if u like (thats what i need)....

I posted somewhere else on the net and got some help up to this point but it seems to have gone stale so i'm hoping I can find out what I need to know here.

I run SuSE 9.2. I "did" have a dual boot with WinXP but have now deleted that windows partition in favour of a reiser partition for SuSE. I'm moving / from /dev/hdc6 (the end of the disk near enough), to the new partiton (3 times the size) on /dev/hdc1 (start of the disk, mounted as /vol1/).

The guidance I had so far was as follows:

1. Create /dev and /proc on /dev/hdc1 as root but leave them empty
2. Run cp -av /bin /vol1/ etc etc to copy all files from the root EXCEPT /dev and /proc
3. [This is what I'm confused with] Edit fstab and reboot

Now then.... surely since fstab is /etc/fstab something knows which partition to look for fstab on before it gets read? (GRUB???). So I dont understand their directions. Surely I need to edit GRUB somehow?

I like to "think" I'm very computer literate and love to do things myself but because I know I could do something very wrong here I need some help :P

Please don't come back with any comments about doing it another way (with partitioning software and resizing etc), I've got this far, I might as well finish it off.

Thanks for any help offered guys, it's much appreciated.

EDIT || I've edited fstab on the partition I now want to boot to and made a backup of the orginal too just in case. I know I did that part right but now the bootloader is a bit confusing... but once someone explains this to me it'll be easy. What does the notation x,y represnt?

(hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc6 vga=0x305 selinux=0 splash=silent resume=/dev/hdc5 desktop elevator=as showopts

Here it was originally 0,5 for /dev/hdc6 (is that counting hard disk 0 (first one, or primary, followed by partition 5 (index from zero which is how /dev/hdc6 comes about)). If it is then I guess I just change 0,5 to 0,0 since the new boot partition is the first one on the disk?

Bump (Didn't realise editting title doesn't reflect in the thread list like phpBB)

Never mind guys I sorted this.

Turns out it is how I expected.

(hd,x,y)/boot/vmlinuz

x == disk number starting at zero
y == partition number starting at zero

If anyones interested you need to do the following to move / somewhere else... (turns out /dev was needed after all) [I'll assum you created the new partition to move it ono successfully on formatted it with a *nix comptiable filesystem].

1. Login as root
2. mkdir /mount_point_of_new_partition/proc
3. cp -av /bin/ /boot/ /dev/ /home/ /lib/ /media/ /opt/ /root/ /sbin/ /srv/ /sys/ /usr/ /var/ /mount_point_of_new_partition/ <----- EVERYTHING in / except /proc (or you'll infinte loop it)
4. Edit your boot loader to point to the disk and partition number of the new mount point (I used yast which has a grub editor to make this easier... then simly replaced everything that had 0,5 (/dev/hdc6) with 0,0 (my new partition).
5. cp /mount_point_of_new_partition/etc/fstab /mount_point_of_new_partition/etc/fstab.backup
6. pico /mount_point_of_new_partition/etc/fstab
[Now substitue / with /mount_point_of_new_partition and CTRL+O --> Enter to save it]
7. Reboot

When it fires up again run....

df -ah

....just to make sure everything mounted OK.

If it's all OK then go ahead and delete everything on /mount_point_of_new_partition/ but be very careful not to

rm -rf /*

instead (yes I have done it recently)

NOTE: It's probably best to jot down on a bit of paper exactly what your bootloader is pointing to before you change it. It'll be far easier to recover if you can't get the system to boot back up again this way.

Side note: Kool forum.... I shall be coming here often to see what's going on (I moderate another very well known forum but not for *nix... for PHP ).

Laterz

I don't understand step 6. "/mount_point_of_new_partition" would just become "/" after reboot. Did you mean substituting old root partition device (hdc6) with new root partition device (hdc1)?

Tom

Yes sorry, I worded it wrongly. I didn't physically move the partition, I moved the files to a different partition

A quick note: If you noticed a post shortly after I posted these instructions there's one more step to do. I made the mistake and ended up with a

GRUB > _

Prompt at the second reboot.

When you reboot into your new partition the /boot/ files will be the old ones (it booted from your old partitions config files at first).

You need to finally either

cp -a /old_mount_point/boot/ /

OR reconfigure GRUB like you did before the reboot.

Thats it.

Please dont bump questions if they are not answered.

Read the FAQs again please.

(4) Do not 'bump up' questions if they are not answered promptly. No duplicate or cross-posting and do not report a post where your goal is to get an answer more quickly.



BUT... thanks for updating your solution... that helps greatly with the main purpose for this site. Which is to provide a repository of knowledge for our mutual consumption.