How to hide few disk file systems ??

Hi,

I am having a linux system with a single hard disk.
I have lot of important data on this hard disk. For experimental purpose I want to build a new kernel image from a source which will contain modified code for file system implementation (the code contains some modifications to ext2 implementation). Also it may contain lot of bugs which may corrupt data on the disk. So, after loading the new linux kernel image, I want to make sure that my old data stored on the disk must be safe.

In order to achieve this, I want to create a new
partition on the disk. After loading the system with new kernel image, I want to access only the new partition that I created. And I want to hide the old ext2 partitions.

Now the problem is how can I hide the old partitions
after booting the system with new kernel image (to avoid corruption of my old data on disk ) ??

Any configuration is needed to hide file systems ??

Can anybody help me how to solve this problem ??

TIA,

Narsimha Reddy CH
Storage Area Networking, HCL Technologies
Contact  +91-044 2372 8366 ext 1128

http://san.hcltech.com
http://www.hcltech.com

If your new code is buggy and corrupts random places of the kernel, then the kernel may do random things, including writing to random places on disk.

Maybe you can run your experimental kernel under User Mode Linux.

Andries

Short of physically disconnecting the hard drive from the system, there is no absolutely sure way to "hide" your old partitions from the new kernel. Various degrees of safety would be achieved by

1. Not mounting the "important data" partitions, a degree of
safety you can achieve by editing /etc/fstab

2. Removing the /dev/hda* devices for the filesystems.

But the drive itself must always remain accessible, so at some level, the data always remain at risk.

So I guess the real question is ... how important are these "important data"? If they are worth $100, the solution is to buy a new hard disk and use it for your experiments. If they are not that important, then you may find either of my risk-reducing suggestions sufficient.

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
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