SOLVED - Re: Renumbering partitions on an external drive

[Robert Moskowitz]

After more research, I found I was using the wrong fdisk commands.

x
fi
r
w

does it.  'w' does not work in expert mode, nor does it give a warning 
if you do 'fiw' so the changes never got written.  You need the 'r' to 
first return to the main menu.  'm' for help really helped!


On 10/02/2014 01:46 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>
> 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
>
>