Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - INSTALLATION GUIDE FOR X86-ITANIUMTM-AMD64 AND INTEL EXTENDED MEMORY 64 TECHNOLO Installation Manual page 99

Appendix D. An Introduction to Disk Partitions
plete backup is necessary. For your own sake, make two backups, use verification (if available in
your backup software), and try to read data from your backup before you delete the partition.
Caution
If there was an operating system of some type installed on that partition, it needs to be rein-
stalled as well. Be aware that some computers sold with pre-installed operating systems may
not include the CD-ROM media to reinstall the original operating system. The best time to no-
tice if this applies to your system is before you destroy your original partition and its operating
system installation.
After creating a smaller partition for your existing operating system, you can reinstall any soft-
ware, restore your data, and start your Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation. Figure D-10 shows
this being done.
DOS DOS DOS
Figure D-10. Disk Drive Being Destructively Repartitioned
In Figure D-10, 1 represents before and 2 represents after.
Caution
As Figure D-10, shows, any data present in the original partition is lost without proper backup!
Non-Destructive Repartitioning
Here, you run a program that does the seemingly impossible: it makes a big partition smaller
without losing any of the files stored in that partition. Many people have found this method to be
reliable and trouble-free. What software should you use to perform this feat? There are several
disk management software products on the market. Do some research to find the one that is best
for your situation.
While the process of non-destructive repartitioning is rather straightforward, there are a number
of steps involved:
Compress and backup existing data
•
Resize the existing partition
•
Create new partition(s)
•
Next we will look at each step in a bit more detail.
D.1.4.3.1. Compress existing data
As Figure D-11, shows, the first step is to compress the data in your existing partition. The reason for
doing this is to rearrange the data such that it maximizes the available free space at the "end" of the
partition.
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