[NBLUG/talk] dd for different size partitions?

[Bob Blick]

I want to resize partitions. I'm starting with a hard disk that has
multiple partitions.

For a starting place, let's say I want to make the / partition (/dev/hda1)
bigger and an adjacent partiton (/dev/hda2) smaller. I care about the /
partition and don't care about the other partition although I will retain
it with a new smaller size. So far so good.

I have plenty of room on /home, so I figured I'd copy the / partition onto
a file on /home, resize and reformat the two other partitions, and copy
the / partition back.

OK, so could I do this:

boot from a knoppix or other CD
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hda3/home/bob/my_partition_file
then do my resizing and do this
dd if=/dev/hda3home/bob/my_partition_file

But then I got to thinking that this really wouldn't work, because dd will
screw up the partition because it is writing to a different size partition
- basically I will end up with the same size partition, but it will take
more room on the drive.

Any and all info on this is welcomed.

Cheerful regards,

Bob