partitioning "after the fact"

[David Kelly]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 02:13:43PM -0800, Rob wrote:
> I guess I didn't plan well in my partitioning scheme for this laptop.
> 
> I have a 15G primary partition #1 containing XP, 15G logical partition
> #2 containing empty space recovered from a previous Linux install, 15G primary partition 
> #3 containing FreeBSD, and the rest of the disk unallocated.
> 
> I think I already know the answer to my question but I wanted to ask
> to make certain.  I would like to make partition #2 to also contain
> FreeBSD.  But if I remember correctly there is no way to do such a
> thing without starting all over again in setting up the disk.

You could *add* it as another filesystem fairly easily.

Guessing FreeBSD is on /dev/ad0s3, XP on /dev/ad0s1, and the previous
Linux install is slice 2, /dev/ad0s2. The easiest thing to do would be
fire up sysinstall on your running multiuser system then write a
partition table to /dev/ad0s2 and claim (probably) /dev/ad0s2d as
"/usr2", write filesystem, and mount it.

If you feel like playing and have nothing to lose and everything to
learn then look into geom(4), ccd(4), and (g)vinum, as different means
of spanning a filesystem (grow /usr or /home onto the new space) over
multiple partitions. Its not the kind of thing one normally wants to do
on a single drive system, but sometimes one has to do what one has to
do. Also might learn something in the process.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.