Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3: System Administration Guide
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# 1.4. Reverting to an ext2 File System

Because ext3 is relatively new, some disk utilities do not yet support it. For example, you may need to shrink a partition with `resize2fs`, which does not yet support ext3. In this situation, it may be necessary to temporarily revert a file system to ext2.

To revert a partition, you must first unmount the partition by logging in as root and typing:

    umount /dev/hdbX

In the above command, replace /dev/`hdb` with the device name and `X` with the partition number. For the remainder of this section, the sample commands will use `hdb1` for these values.

Next, change the file system type to ext2 by typing the following command as root:

    /sbin/tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/hdb1

Check the partition for errors by typing the following command as root:

    /sbin/e2fsck -y /dev/hdb1

Then mount the partition again as ext2 file system by typing:

    mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb1 /mount/point

In the above command, replace `/mount/point` with the mount point of the partition.

Next, remove the `.journal` file at the root level of the partition by changing to the directory where it is mounted and typing:

    rm -f .journal

You now have an ext2 partition.

If you permanently change the partition to ext2, remember to update the `/etc/fstab` file.

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