Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2009-09-06

1) GParted is an amazing tool.

I recently used GParted, the Gnome Partition Editor a couple times.
I used it to move and resize both NTFS, and ext3 partitions.

To install it using Ubuntu 9.04 run:

  # apt-get install gparted

I also installed:

  # apt-get install xfsprogs reiser4progs jfsutils ntfsprogs

Unfortunately I did not figure out how to turn an extended partition into a
primary partition.

Make sure you backup your data before resizing or moving partitions!

When I moved and resized the ext3 filesystem it was on a SATA drive in a
USB enclosure.  GParted updated the partition table then started a
read-only test for moving the filesystem.  2.5 hours into the test the USB
failed.  dmesg showed:

  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.209480] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.209509] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 706721800
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.209532] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 88340225
  
  ...
  
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.210122] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 706722040
  
  ...
  
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.214300] usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 3
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.757911] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
  Sep  6 12:38:53 bluemachine kernel: [143493.882054] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:54 bluemachine kernel: [143494.104120] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:54 bluemachine kernel: [143494.320142] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
  Sep  6 12:38:54 bluemachine kernel: [143494.440205] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:54 bluemachine kernel: [143494.664105] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:54 bluemachine kernel: [143494.885110] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
  Sep  6 12:38:55 bluemachine kernel: [143495.304145] usb 3-1: device not accepting address 4, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:55 bluemachine kernel: [143495.417160] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
  Sep  6 12:38:55 bluemachine kernel: [143495.829112] usb 3-1: device not accepting address 5, error -71
  Sep  6 12:38:55 bluemachine kernel: [143495.829168] hub 3-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
  
  ...
  
  Sep  6 12:57:03 bluemachine kernel: [144583.245445] hub 3-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1

I tried power cycling the drive but in the end had to reboot Linux to get
it to see the drive.

GParted had reported an error and before rebooting I saved the details that
contained this:
  
  move partition to the left  00:00:11    ( SUCCESS )
       	       
    old start: 109997118
    old end: 781417664
    old size: 671420547 (320.16 GB)
    
    new start: 9992493
    new end: 681413039
    new size: 671420547 (320.16 GB)
  
  move file system to the left  03:20:01    ( ERROR )
       	  
    perform read-only test  03:20:01    ( ERROR ) 
    
I manually ran fdisk to edit the partition table on the drive and saw the
"new start" and "new end" values defining a partition.

The partition table had been updated but the data had not been moved
(because the read-only test failed).  I deleted this partition and create a
new partition with the "old start" and "old end" values.

Running a fsck shows the filesystem is not corrupt:
  
  fsck.ext3 -n -f /dev/sdb5
  e2fsck 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
  Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
  Pass 2: Checking directory structure
  Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
  Pass 4: Checking reference counts
  Pass 5: Checking group summary information
  /dev/sdb5: 250658/20987904 files (0.6% non-contiguous), 49542256/83927568 blocks