Moving folder to existing partition without changing its "path"

[GrMbL]

I've been searching alot and reading through the man page of the mount command. I also tested a lot of commands in on a test system, but still don't get where i want to be.

But i'm still relativily new to linux, but i learned a lot the last few months.

I have this debian working samba/fileserver, no gui, kernel 2.6.8-3-686

Partition info
/dev/hda2 11G mounted on /
/dev/hda5 58G mounted on /home
/dev/hda6 3 G mounted on swap

i've a folder /data which is on /dev/hda2 and that one is out of space since my shares are in there (auto backups etc).
When i mount /data on /dev/hda5 it gets the contents of the /home folder.
# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda5 /data

i'm a bit stubborn but i really would like to have my /data at the / when i "ls" and still residing on the same partition as /home

Is there anyway i can do this without repartioning my /dev/hda5?
I can't get it to work though it seems a pretty stupid problem.

=> Long story, short story:
Any way in linux to have multiple folders be on one partition? Like the root (/) one? And is there a way to do this with partition that already exist?

thx in advance for reading.
GrMbL

[Vergil83]

So you want to move /dev/hda2/data to /dev/hda5/data or do you want to move /dev/hda2 to /dev/hda5 (that already has /home)? Perhaps a symlink so when you try look at /data on hda2 it sends you to /dev/hda5/home/data
The ln command could do that

[GrMbL]

i want to move /dev/hda2/data to /dev/hda5/data.

the link you gave is interesting, but it doesn't let me physically move the data foldert to the other partition if i interpret the command correctly.

[devils casper]

data is a folder not partition. its not possible to mount folder. create a folder 'data' in /dev/hda5 and copy files from /devhda2/data to /dev/hda5.

cd /dev/hda2/data
find . -depth -print0 | cpio --null --sparse -pvd  /dev/hda5/data

if everything works, delete /dev/hda2/data.

[peteh]

hda5 is actually mounted as /home so I don't see how you could also mount it as /data. You would have to make it /home/data or split off another partition from hda5 making it hda6 and mounting that as /data.
Then all you need to do is use your filemanager to drag all the files across.

[GrMbL]

i was obviously looking from a windows point of view. i thought i maybe missed something the way linux works with folders and partitions, but it seems there was a reason why i couldn't get it to work, simply 'cause it isn't possible.

I still think its kinda weird, but i'll get used to it
The / on my other partition does contain multiple folders, but i guess the "/" is the same sort of folder like my /home where all things start and spread out like the branches of a tree.

Anyway, thx for the answers.

[devils casper]

check this link on Linux FileSystem.
if you are copying system and config files then you must preserve permissions and symlinks. simply copying will not work.

[peteh]

if you are copying system and config files then you must preserve permissions and symlinks. simply copying will not work.

I was, of course, assuming your /data folder was personal with personal files. As devils_casper says, my idea would only work if this was the case.