6.4. Reverting to an ext2 File System
Because ext3 is relatively new, some disk utilities do not yet support it. For example, you may need to shrink a partition with
resize2fs, which does not yet support ext3. In this situation, it may be necessary to temporarily revert a file system to ext2.
To revert a partition, you must first unmount the partition by logging in as root and typing,
umount /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Next, change the file system type to ext2 by typing the following command as root:
/sbin/tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Check the partition for errors by typing the following command as root:
/sbin/e2fsck -y /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
Then mount the partition again as ext2 file system by typing:
mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02/mount/point
In the above command, replace /mount/point with the mount point of the partition.
Next, remove the
.journal file at the root level of the partition by changing to the directory where it is mounted and typing:
rm -f .journal
You now have an ext2 partition.
If you want to permanently change the partition to ext2, remember to update the
/etc/fstab file.
Note
You can increase the size of an ext3 file system using
ext2online. ext2online allows you to increase the size of an ext3 file system once it is mounted (online) and on a resizable logical volume. The root file system is set up by default on LVM2 logical volumes during installation.
Note that
ext2online will only work on ext3 file systems. For more information, refer to man ext2online.
