1 Topic by nunny

  • nunny
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-10-26
  • Posts: 1

Topic: undefined partition

I just installed a hard drive where I installed Fedora Core 7.  ( in previous versions of Fedora the installation gave opportunity to partition drive).  When the installation was finished and it is totally set-up, I discovered the only partition defined was boot partition.

If I Format the partiton from 'Unknown' to 'ext3' I believe I will eliminate all data in that partition. Correct??

If this is correct can you suggest a fix.

<<<ken>>>

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: undefined partition

Perhaps you needed to use some non-automatic install option.

If you format a partition, you eliminate the data (or, at least, the pointers to the data). You can make new partitions in the unallocated space of the disk. If the install took the entire drive, you need to create unallocated space shrinking that partition.

You can use the command
fdisk -l
(from the terminal, as superuser) to see your actual partitions.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by azeem

  • azeem
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-12-11
  • Posts: 1

Re: undefined partition

My disk situation is:
Filesystem                                      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00    72G   42G   27G  62% /
/dev/sda2                                         99M   17M   78M  18% /boot
tmpfs                                               474M     0  474M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1                                        248M  127M  122M  52% /mnt/usb

I need this 27G as Fat32. I tried Gparted but it shows my whole 72G as unknown partition. So what can I do? You can look at the screen shot of my Gparted here
http://www.uaar.edu.pk/gdb/Screenshot-1.png

Any suggestion for resizing my disk without lossing data and OS.

4 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: undefined partition

I see that this partition is LVM.
Unfortunately, gparted doesn't support LVM. That's why it is marked unknown.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

5 Reply by FergatROn

  • FergatROn
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-05-03
  • Posts: 1

Re: undefined partition

What is LVM and how can I avoid using this type of partition?  Thanks.

6 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: undefined partition

LVM means "Logical Volume Manager" and allows some flexibility on storage space management, like expanding the disk space on various hard drives etc. Linux systems don't create it by default. It is intended for rather advanced users.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***