How do you safely decrease the partition?

[Zirconium]

I wish to know how to safely decrease the size of SLED 10's partition. I know where to go to decrease it, but what do I need to do before hand so that when I decrease it, nothing is removed? then what do I do with the left over partition?

[oz]

You can easily shrink a partition with the Parted Magic LiveCD:

Parted Magic

You won't have to do anything with the free space it creates because it will be unallocated space. You could expand another partition if you wish, or create a new partition.

[gogalthorp]

Note you can only expand an adjacent partition!

[Zirconium]

You can easily shrink a partition with the Parted Magic LiveCD:

Parted Magic

You won't have to do anything with the free space it creates because it will be unallocated space. You could expand another partition if you wish, or create a new partition.

but theres a partition thing in YaST, so why use Parted Magic? and what do I need to do before I start the partitioning?

[oz]

The partitioning utility you use is a matter of personal preference. Try it with Yast if that's what you prefer.

You don't need to do anything before partitioning, except perhaps for making a backup in case anything should go wrong. Again, it's optional, but always recommended.

[Zirconium]

OK, so the one in YaST and the others are fairly well the same? OK, now what are the requirements to make a backup? and how do restore your system if something goes wrong?

EDIT: OK I just went to partition the disk but it said the partition mount was in use, so it stopped it, so how do I partition the disk when I only have the one OS installed? or should I use my Debian CD to shrink it? but what entry's should I put put the partition's as to have both for dual boot?

[Zirconium]

never mind, I need to get back on my computer and stop using my dads so I'll install Debian right off the bat, thanks for the help anyway

[oz]

OK I just went to partition the disk but it said the partition mount was in use, so it stopped it

That's why I like the Parted Magic LiveCD mentioned above. It doesn't automatically mount the partitions that you will be trying to work with. Still, it's a matter of personal preference and you should use whatever partitioning tool you prefer.

[bigtomrodney]

A couple of people have remarked to me that the YaST partitioner seems complicated which I guess is because it is all represented in text. Gparted is more straightforward and the graphical hard disk representation does help out.