G.3. Partitioning with parted
As a convenience to our customers, we provide the parted utility. This is a freely available program that can resize partitions.
If you decide to repartition your hard drive with parted, it is important that you do two things:
Perform a Backup — Make two copies of all the important data on your computer. These copies should be to removable media (such as tape, CD-ROM, or diskettes), and you should make sure they are readable before proceeding.
Read the Documentation — Completely read the parted documentation; refer to the chapter titled Managing Disk Storage in the Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.
G.3.1. Partitioning a Windows System
On a Windows-only box, you may need to repartition the system to make room for Red Hat Linux.
First, insert the Red Hat Linux CD #1 and reboot your system. You need to boot off the CD in order to access parted in rescue mode. If you cannot boot off the CD, you may need to edit your BIOS settings. For more information about editing your BIOS, see Section 3.3.1 Booting the Installation Program.
Once you have booted off the CD, you will receive a boot prompt. At the boot prompt, type: linux rescue. This will start the rescue mode program.
You will be prompted for your keyboard and language preferences. Select these values as you would during the installation of Red Hat Linux.
Next, a screen will appear telling you that the program will now attempt to find a Red Hat Linux install to rescue. Select Skip on this screen.
After selecting Skip, you will be given a command prompt where you can access the partitions you would like to repartition.
At the prompt, type parted /dev/hdX or parted /dev/sdX (for whichever drive you want to repartition), where X is the partition number of that hard drive.
View the current partition table using the print command to determine the minor number of the partition to remove as well as the start and end points for the partition:
The used space of the partition to resize must not be larger than the new size.
 | Warning |
|---|---|
Any changes that you make with parted take place immediately. |
To resize the partition, use the resize command followed by the minor number for the partition, the starting place in megabytes, and the end place in megabytes. For example:
resize 3 1024 2048 |
After resizing the partition, use the print command to confirm that the partition has been resized correctly, is the correct partition type, and is the correct file system type.
Once you have completed your repartitioning tasks, type exit to shutdown your system.
Finally, reboot your system. Rebooting may occur automatically, but if it does not, manually reboot your system.
You are now ready to install Red Hat Linux.