Have a drive partitioned (MBR) to have 1 partition. However, I had forgotten to change partition type to LINUX. Now that I have data on it (fstype ext3), I wonder if it is worth it to change partition type to Linux? Current type is 7 (ntfs). Could changing the type to Linux make the data inaccessible?
On 07/06/2016 07:59 PM, jd1008 wrote:
Have a drive partitioned (MBR) to have 1 partition. However, I had forgotten to change partition type to LINUX. Now that I have data on it (fstype ext3), I wonder if it is worth it to change partition type to Linux? Current type is 7 (ntfs). Could changing the type to Linux make the data inaccessible?
No, the kernel in most cases ignores the partition type. Usually the filesystem type is specified in /etc/fstab and if not, it will auto-detect it when you try to mount.
Since you're already able to use it, setting it to the right type definitely won't hurt anything, although I'm not sure what would happen if you modify the partition entry for a filesystem that is already mounted. I would recommend doing it from a live CD/USB.
Allegedly, on or about 06 July 2016, jd1008 sent:
Have a drive partitioned (MBR) to have 1 partition. However, I had forgotten to change partition type to LINUX. Now that I have data on it (fstype ext3), I wonder if it is worth it to change partition type to Linux?
As Samuel said, it's mostly ignored by Linux. However, if you dual-boot with Windows, it *may* be worthwhile changing it, so that Windows will ignore it. I don't know what Windows gets up to, these days, but in the past it *could* repeatedly ask whether you wanted to format such a partition.
On Linux, few things pay attention to the partition type. Some formatting tools may default to formatting a partition with a filesystem according to it's type, when you begin to run the program (e.g. the choice gets preselected). But you're free to change the default, and actually format it with a different filesystem.
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JD -
Samuel Sieb -
Tim