Renumbering partitions on an external drive

[Robert Moskowitz]

On 10/02/2014 01:44 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> I have been messing around with partitions on a drive and now 
> physically they are sdb2,sdb3,sdb1.  I want to get them in order. the 
> fdisk xpert fiw does NOT renumber them; it seems to be happy with 
> things as they are.
>
> Is there anyway to fix this short of rebuilding the partition table, 
> carefully pointing each new entry to the right block? parted and 
> gparted don't have any help either.
>
> Yes, I know this is cosmetic, but hey, it SHOULD LOOK nice and neat...

Oh here is what fdisk and parted report on the drive:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 298.1 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0009e2ad

Device    Boot     Start       End    Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdb1       92274688 625141759 266433536  83 Linux
/dev/sdb2           2048   8388607   4193280  82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3        8388608  92274687  41943040  83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

# parted /dev/sdb print
Model: Kingston SNA-DC/U (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags
  2      1049kB  4295MB  4294MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)
  3      4295MB  47.2GB  42.9GB  primary  ext4
  1      47.2GB  320GB   273GB   primary  ext4