Is it possible to change the mount points without formatting the drive or reinstalling the OS?

[steven vollom]

On Sunday 07 June 2009 09:08:37 am David McGlone wrote:
> On Sunday 07 June 2009 01:29:09 am steven vollom wrote:
> > On Sunday 07 June 2009 12:10:03 am David McGlone wrote:
> > > On Saturday 06 June 2009 04:50:45 pm steven vollom wrote:
> >
> > When I installed the '/' partition, I used 20gb for size which after
> > installation appears to be a little over 17gb.  It currently has 14.7gb
> > of unused space after moving the movies to /dev/sda2.  The balance of the
> > 80GiB HDD contains all the data that has been saved in the new
> > installation and shows a remainder of storage space as 43.7GiB.
> >
> > Of the 200GiB HDD, /dev/sdb2 is the 99gb partition which after
> > partitioning shows a balance of space as 86.8GiB (but has no data stored
> > in it).  The other 100gb partition of the 200GiB HDD, and is also empty,
> > shows a balance of space at 90.2GiB.  You now have an accurate
> > description of my computer's partitions.
> >
> > Now here is the fstab, which totally confuses me when I look at it:
> >
> > # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
> > #
> > # Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
> > # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
> > devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
> > #
> > # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
> > proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
> > # / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
> > UUID=6747e921-8b72-4f24-b6a8-c86c919d869a /               ext3
> > relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
> > # swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
> > UUID=cc9ed070-52d6-41df-81f4-985108e1436d none            swap    sw
> > 0       0
> > /dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0      
> > 0 /dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0     
> >  0
> >
> > Here is what I intended and really want as my partitioning setup, if it
> > is possible through editing fstab:
>
> Ok we are going to have to stop right here. I was under the impression that
> you had already set up your other partitions (home, svpersonal and backup)
> but apparently you have only set up a root partition.
>
> So this changes the scenario, and puts you in a position where you have 2
> choices. You can either re-install 1 more time and make sure you set up
> your partitions this time around, or you can try resizing them, which I
> never do, because sometimes resizing can corrupt partitions, especially on
> a Winbloze system.
>
> --
> Blessings,
> David M.
> http://www.dmcentral.net
My memory comes from long ago, and with much less knowledge than now, but when 
I operated XP, I used a partition editor called Partition Magic, and I thought 
you could do all sorts of partition changing without having to reinstall.  Do 
you know anything about that?  I can remember adding and changing volumes with 
the unused portion of a partition, things like that; I don't remember anything 
about mount points, but I was wondering if there was a difference in how such 
things are handled in other OS's.  Anyway, not a problem, I will reinstall 
today and get things finally right.

I really am curious about things like installing Wine and e-Sword.  I am 
hoping I can get them more easily properly installed when mounting has been 
corrected.  They were the problem I was eluding to in a past email as being 
particularly problematic when /media is present as mount point.

Hope you don't mind the lil brother comment; that is the way I think of you 
now.

Blessings,

Steven