Linux geek advice request

[katreeny]

Okay... so, I have my Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) setup on a 40GB hard drive which is the machine secondary. Windows lives on the other hard drive (155GB, machine primary). On top of that I run a 160GB external USB which holds all my music.

The "windows" drive is also my backup, where I park a snapshot of my home directory each time I need to rebuild my linux partition. It's got about 54 GB spare. The music drive has 85GB spare, and my Linux drive is down to less than 10GB - and I haven't got Blender and the age building tools set up again yet.

Linux drive runs ext3, windows NTFS, and the music drive FAT32.

So... What's the best way to rearrange things without losing data or application configuration? I'm leery of repartitioning an existing hard drive, for rather obvious reasons (I've been burned, badly, by this, then been hit by corrupt backups. Nasty), although if someone knows a way of doing it that won't bork the existing data, I'm willing to try.

Thanks for any advice you feel like giving,

Katreeny

[diafero]

I don't think you will get around re-partitioning the main disc... the only other idea I have might work if the external disc is always connected: You could move /home on the external disc. Depending on how much data you have there, this might make room for enough apps on the linux main partition.

[katreeny]

Diafero,

What would you recommend if I was to take the partitioning route?

Thanks,

Katreeny

[Goofy]

Ummm why not just buy another external drive. I've see 1TB drives for under $200.00

[katreeny]

Ummm why not just buy another external drive. I've see 1TB drives for under $200.00

Um... I'm actually running out of USB connections. And that's with the 7 port hub...

Although I am tempted by the 500GB Amazon has going for under $100.

Katreeny

[diafero]

I definitely advise a complete back-up before touching the partitions

I used GParted last time I re-partitioned my drive, and it worked great. But of course one never knows what strange things can happen.

[ddb174]

Yeah, definitely do a backup if you have any really important data. There is a GParted Live-cd that you can burn and boot off of; that works fairly well. In my experience, Paragon has the best/most reliable software for rearranging partitions, but that's closed-source and commercial. But it does handle linux partitions (ext*, reiser, swap, etc) very well.

[diafero]

swap

Resizing a swap partition must be *really* hard

[katreeny]

Heh... Amazon.com solved the question for me. I'm now waiting for a nice shiny new 1TB drive for under $100 to be delivered. No, that's not a typo. 1TB external hard drive for $99. I'll FIND somewhere in my forest of USB cables to put the thing!

It comes pre-formatted to NTFS, but it shouldn't be hard to fix that

Then I can shift /home and a few other "hungry" sections across (AFTER backing them up and leaving a copy on my main Linux drive until I know it will all boot correctly and go to the right places) and use those on that nice big drive that I might, just maybe, take a little while to fill up!

Katreeny