[TriLUG] LVM - searching in wilderness for guru

[Mauricio Tavares via TriLUG]

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:31 PM, MR-pootr via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> Dear TriLUGers,
>
> I bought a 750GB hard drive
> Installed it in laptop
> Booted from Ubuntu 14.04 on a USB stick
> Selected LVM for the entire HD
> Installed U 14.04
> Ended up with small (MB) swap partition and rest of drive with Ubuntu on it
> Added Thunderbird and a few other Linux pgms
> Added some files (spreadsheet, images, docs)
> Made Firefox the default browser
> Deleted lots of duplicate book marks
> etc.
> ----------------------------------
> Now:
> I would like to move my "real" data to a separate partition and also put
> there data from prior hard drive, which I still have but which became
> unbootable.
>
> I would like to establish a backup protocol and do that for the 'data'
>
> I would like to revcover the Evernote, Tbird, and Quicken data
>
> I would like to make a small partition(s) for Win7 or possibly use it for a
> virtual machine to use the 4-5 programs that have no Linux counterpart.
>
> Are these reasonable goals and is there a handholder while I navigate the
> LVM renovation?
>
> Mike R
> 919 782 9576
>
      I will probably not make sense because I am nurturing a bloody
awful headache, but let me see if I understand what you want to do:

1) If you need an extra partition, boot from a live CD, resize the
large partition down (resize2fs I think) and then resize its lv
(lvresize). Then you can create a new lv for the other data. Assuming
something like ext3/4; other filesystems are better or worse.

2) The above can be done for the Win7 stuff you mentioned. FYI, I
usually run my vms using a lv for its disk, a la xen.

3) If you have problems reading partitions off the bad disk, copy it
into an iso (ddrescue maybe) and go play with it.

4) I will give an entire disk/raid to lvm, save boot and whatnot, make
a pv, but will not max it out. FYI, my laptop has a 60GB(!) SSD but I
am using using 30 in lvs. Shrinking lvs is not as nice as fattening
them.

5) If you need to resize a Windows host, resize it in windows first
and then put/resize it in a disk/lv that matches the new size.