Linux question

[mikebw at bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)]

John Abreau wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

>>  I need to set up Linux on my PC for a class I'm taking.  Is
>>  it possible to repartition my drive without wiping out what is
>>  presently on my system? I have a new Pentium that came preinstalled
>>  with Windows95.  I am going to install the InfoMagic Linux. 
>>  Do you know of any software that allows one to repartition the disk 
>>  without erasing what is already on it?

 JA> I've heard of a utility called FIPS that is supposed to do
 JA> something like that for DOS/Windows, but I'm not sure if
 JA> that would work with Windows 95. Perhaps your safest bet
 JA> would be to get a second hard drive for Linux, or to plan on
 JA> reinstalling Windows 95 after partitioning (although if it
 JA> was preinstalled, I'd guess the vendor didn't provide the
 JA> original installation disks)

Partitioning utilities are largely independent of the operating system, except
for the one they run under.  In order to repartition non-destructively,
however, the utiltiy must have intimate knowledge about the internals of the
filesystem is use.

Partition Magic for DOS and OS/2 from PowerQuest, for example, knows the
internals of FAT and HPFS, is capable of resizing FAT and HPFS partitions, and
is also capable of converting a FAT partition to an HPFS partition.  I don't
know of any such utility that has knowledge of the main Linux filesystems such
as xiafs or ext2fs.

The Windows 95 VFAT file system is not compatible with anything, not even with
Windows NT.
 
-- Mike