Re-Partitioning without Rebooting?

[Peter Lieverdink]

On Wed, 2005-09-07 at 00:19 +0100, Toby Kelsey wrote:
> James Gray wrote:
> 
> > Is the drive unmounted when you're repartitioning??  If not, then then it 
> > will be in use (by the kernel).  You can repartition stuff without 
> > rebooting *but* the drive needs to _unmounted_ first.
> 
> This is inaccurate unless you mean *partition* instead of (disk) drive.  It should be possible to, 
> for example, repartition hda4 while booted of hda1.  I believe you have unintentionally misled Andreas.

Repartition a partition? Huh? Did you mean reformat?

If ANY partition on a disk is in use (mounted), the kernel will not be
able to re-read the new partition table. Ie: you can delete hda4 when
booted from hda1, but hda4 will STILL appear to exist until after a
reboot. It will give you the exact warning as show below.
 
> Andreas wrote:
> 
>  > WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
>  > The kernel still uses the old table.
>  > The new table will be used at the next reboot.
>  > Syncing disks.
> 
> This implies you need to reboot to see your changes.  However, see 'man partprobe' for another solution.

- P.