Re: Reordering partitions

[Andrew Clausen]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 07:03:20PM -0800, Ross Boylan wrote:
> I have a disk with an extended partition.  The last 2 logical partitions in 
> the chain physically precede some of the earlier ones.  They are Linux 
> partitions; some of the earlier ones are NTFS.
> 
> Is there a way I can resequence the logical partitions so they appear in 
> physical order?  I really only want to alter the chaining.

Parted doesn't support this, because there are some cases where it
isn't possible to do it.  (Ok, perhaps not a good reason, but it
certainly makes the issue a whole lot more complicated)

> The immediate reason I need to do this is that I need to grow one of the 
> NTFS partitions, and the tool I'm using (Partition Magic 4) refuses to have 
> anything to do with the drive while the partitions are out of order.  A 
> secondary reason is that it warns that some tools may mess up the disk 
> without the partitions in order (I use principally Linux and Windows 2000, 
> with a little Windows 98).

That sucks :/  I think newer versions of PM can re-order for you,
but I'm not sure... I have never had the pleasure...

> Second, if I accomplish the resequencing, how much trouble is it going to 
> cause?  I believe that I can override the usual parameters in LILO enough 
> to get on at least my root partition (which would move because of the 
> operation) and then edit the appropriate tables to adjust.  I'm not sure if 
> I need to rerun LILO itself, or if it uses physical addresses (which won't 
> change).  I'm also not sure if the Windows disk recognizers will be thrown 
> by the changes.  Since the partition with the OS for W2k is also affected 
> by the rechaining, this could be a little ugly.

I think Windows will change drive-letter assignments, which can be
very painful.

Cheers,
Andrew