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Date:      27 Mar 2000 22:40:21 -0500
From:      Kevin Street <street@iname.com>
To:        David Kanter <djkanter@nwu.edu>
Cc:        FreeBSD questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: The dreaded need to repartition...
Message-ID:  <874s9r4va2.fsf@mired.eh.local>
In-Reply-To: David Kanter's message of "Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:01:14 -0600"
References:  <20000327190114.A39695@localhost.localdomain>

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David Kanter <djkanter@nwu.edu> writes:

> If I were to be so bold as to repartition (i.e., have to wipe out the
> FreeBSD slice and start over again), what would be the most sane way of
> doing this?
> 
> Would I have to back up all partitions with dump (could I do this onto a mounted
> Windows drive?), reinstall a minimal base system with the new partitioning
> scheme, and then restore the dumped files?

That's certainly a reasonable way to do it.  You should be able to
save the dumps on a windows partition.  

You might even get away without doing a reinstall.  If you already
have a separate root partition then you can run standalone with just
root mounted while you repartition and restore the rest.  Even if you
have to move your root partition, you should be able to drop to
standalone, delete all partitions except your current root, create a
new root partition and restore to there, reboot using the new root
partition and then finish your repartitioning and restoring.  

You do need to think a few steps ahead if you try this.  One thing
missing from the root partition is an editor (except for ed).  You
might want to build a statically linked editor and save it somewhere
on root before you start, in case you need one during the process.
You should also make sure you have all the entries in /dev that you'll
need for your new partitions.  Also, before you start, print out any
man pages you'll need to refer to.

Backup everything somewhere safe.
-- 
Kevin Street
street@iname.com


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