Reclaiming Hard Drive Space

[Tony Hammitt]

"Gene E. Dascher" wrote:
> 
> I want to reclaim some hard drive space from a Win98 drive to use with my RH6.1 setup.  Here is 
how my system is currently set up:
> 
> HDA:    500MB Win98 Root FAT Partition
>         500MB WinNT4 Root FAT Partition
>         1GB Win Swap/Shared FAT Partition
>         2GB Win98 Games FAT32 Partition
>         1GB Win98 Apps FAT32 Partition
>         1GB Win98 Data FAT32 Partition
> 
> HDB:    50MB Linux native /boot
>         124MB Linux Swap
>         1.5GB Linux Native /
>         1GB Linux Native /home
>         2GB WinNT4 NTFS Apps Partition
> 
> What is the best way to reclaim the Win98 Games, Apps, and Data partitions to use for Linux?  Any 
Hints????
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Gene Dascher
> Systems Developer
> Multi Service
> (913) 663-9415
> gedascher at multiservice.com <mailto:gedascher at multiservice.com>
> 

If you don't want to keep the data in them, you can just use fdisk
from within Linux and change the partition type to 83.  Here's an
example from a spare drive (pretend I have a windows partition):

# fdisk /dev/sdc

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdc: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 329 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1             1       329    336880   83  Linux

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): L

 0  Empty           16  Hidden FAT16    61  SpeedStor       a6  OpenBSD        
 1  FAT12           17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 63  GNU HURD or Sys a7  NeXTSTEP       
 2  XENIX root      18  AST Windows swa 64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs        
 3  XENIX usr       24  NEC DOS         65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap      
 4  FAT16 <32M      3c  PartitionMagic  70  DiskSecure Mult c1  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 5  Extended        40  Venix 80286     75  PC/IX           c4  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 6  FAT16           41  PPC PReP Boot   80  Old Minix       c6  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 7  HPFS/NTFS       42  SFS             81  Minix / old Lin c7  Syrinx         
 8  AIX             4d  QNX4.x          82  Linux swap      db  CP/M / CTOS / .
 9  AIX bootable    4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 83  Linux           e1  DOS access     
 a  OS/2 Boot Manag 4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 84  OS/2 hidden C:  e3  DOS R/O        
 b  Win95 FAT32     50  OnTrack DM      85  Linux extended  e4  SpeedStor      
 c  Win95 FAT32 (LB 51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 86  NTFS volume set eb  BeOS fs        
 e  Win95 FAT16 (LB 52  CP/M            87  NTFS volume set f1  SpeedStor      
 f  Win95 Ext'd (LB 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux 93  Amoeba          f4  SpeedStor      
10  OPUS            54  OnTrackDM6      94  Amoeba BBT      f2  DOS secondary  
11  Hidden FAT12    55  EZ-Drive        a0  IBM Thinkpad hi fe  LANstep        
12  Compaq diagnost 56  Golden Bow      a5  BSD/386         ff  BBT            
14  Hidden FAT16 <3 5c  Priam Edisk    
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Command (m for help): w

# mke2fs /dev/sdc1
mke2fs 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
Linux ext2 filesystem format
Filesystem label=
84336 inodes, 336880 blocks
16844 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
42 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
2008 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
        8193, 16385, 24577, 32769, 40961, 49153, 57345, 65537, 73729, 81921, 
        90113, 98305, 106497, 114689, 122881, 131073, 139265, 147457, 155649, 
        163841, 172033, 180225, 188417, 196609, 204801, 212993, 221185, 229377, 
        237569, 245761, 253953, 262145, 270337, 278529, 286721, 294913, 303105, 
        311297, 319489, 327681, 335873

Writing inode tables: done                            
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Now the disk is (again) usable by Linux.  You could do the
same with your drive.

Hope this helps,

Tony Hammitt