Installation guide

Figure 25.10. Disk Drive Being Destructively Repartitioned
In Figure 25.10, “Disk Drive Being Destructively Repartitioned”, 1 represents before and 2
represents after.
Caution
As Figure 25.10, “Disk Drive Being Destructively Repartitioned”, 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 smal-
ler without losing any of the files stored in that partition. Many people have found this meth-
od 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.
1.4.3.1. Compress existing data
As Figure 25.11, “Disk Drive Being Compressed”, 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 maxim-
izes the available free space at the "end" of the partition.
1.4. Making Room For Red Hat Enterprise Linux
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