The Ext2 (second extended) file system is an advanced file system for Linux kernel. It is a replacement of Ext file system. It is possible to resize the Ext2 file system, while it is mounted and system is using it. This is possible using the ext2online utility. The process of resizing the file system while applications have open files, and writing data to file system, is OK. However, you should always have a complete and valid backup of your mission critical data before mounting an online or mounted file system. In case anything goes wrong, you may encounter serious data loss situations, which requires Linux data recovery to be fixed.
You can resize only the mounted Ext2 file system. In order to use the ext2online utility, you must have Online ext2 resize support (CONFIG_EXT2_RESIZE) option enabled in your Linux Kernel. You can enable this feature after applying appropriate patch for 2.x kernel series.
The file system, which is specified by the device, or the mountpoint must be mounted currently. By default, the mounted file system is enlarged to fill up the device. If you have specified an optional size parameter, then it uses the specified size instead. If optional modifier is not available, it is taken from Ext2 file system blocks.
The ext2online utility doesn’t modify size of actual storage device. It changes the file system only. When you want to enlarge file system, you should expand underlying storage device first. You can do it online for the logical volumes, using the lvextend tool that combines file system resizing and LV extensions.
The original architecture or design of Ext2 file system doesn’t provide online resizing option. There are some limitations to the amount of resizing, that you can do while your file system is mounted. Without any preparation, you can resize Ext2 file system to next 256 MB range for 1 KB file system, 2 GB for 2 KB file system, and 16 GB for 4 KB file system.
You should always keep in mind that resizing the mounted file system is integrally risky and causes file system corruption. At this point, Linux data recovery becomes essential.
Linux recovery is best possible using advanced and powerful third-party applications, known as
Ext2 Recovery software. With interactive graphical user interface and read-only conduct, they are totally safe and easy to use in all data loss situations.
Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery software ensures absolute recovery of lost Linux data using high-end scanning techniques. The software recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes. It works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, including Red Hat, SUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, and Ubuntu
