worst thing happened to me.I wanted to re partition my emmc and 16 GB sd card.I started with making a live usb of Gparted since I could not un mount FAT partition of N900 from my installed Gparted in my computer.

Before that I read a wiki about partitioning.It suggested to have backupmenu.so I installed that and backed up root and opt.Booted gparted and it could see the partitions on emmc.

Then I did silly,funny partitioning.I gave 3GB for ED and called it debian,3GB with a lable home,768Mb as linux swap.I gave the lables on Gparted only.

In case of sd card I have allocated 1GB space for linux swap.

It was a successful operation until I realized that I could not back up any thing from backupmenu.Then it went into reboot loop.I had to flash it.That was not a problem since I have downloaded image with me always.

After that the first thing I did was to install rootsh.It installed flawless but I could not upgrade it because I dont have enough memory to upgrade it. I could not understand what df -h gave me nor can paste it since I dont have ssh.In the settings menu it told me I have literally 1 KB available.I wanted to have 3 GB available for installable applications and ended up with 1 KB.

Now that I have flashed and no space for installable applications I can not have back up menu.Is it needed to partition

Any help will be greately appreciated

1. Start device in backupmenu mode
2. connect it to gparted live [whatever] and select (on device) "mass-storage mode: read&write".
3. You should see your partition scheme in gparted. Check what5 went wrong, and re-repartition it, when appropriate.

Remember, that You can only restore backupmenu backups for same kernel version, as one that was on device, when You created backup. So, if You backuped with kernel-power from -devel, be sure to install it, before trying to restore backup.

In worst case, You can flash everything (including vanilla eMMC layout), and try repartitioning again.

Also, keep in mind, that You should not use ext4 for home partition, if You're not using kernel-power *and/or* You don't know how to modify backupmenu to work with it. In such case, stay with ext3, You aren't losing much.

Please write about actual outcome.

/Estel

// Edit

I see, that you can't install backupmenu, due to small /home + opt. One way, would be to re-partition from terminal as in Wiki article, yet it's pretty complicated (at least, enough to scare me away from this approach, so I'm unable to provide assistance on this method).

Other thing You can do, is to re-flash completely (including vanilla eMMC layout). It's no big deal, as You've juast reflashed COMBINED, and You have backups. So, I recommend the latter method.

I have reflashed the device completely as suggested.Now I have 1.86 GB available for installable applications.I still want to repartition the emmc for dedicated partition for EasyDebian.Someone please point me to a guide where I can do it safely.Gparted looks like a safe thing to me but it wants to erase the contents of the partitions before repartitioning.I dont know how to work with that even after reading a full length tutorial about that.What I want is
1.3GB partition on emmc for Easy Debian
2.768 MB swap space on my SD card.

I read the wiki but I am unable to understand it fully.

It will be of immense help to me if somebody offer suggestions.

Thank you

Download Gparted-Live-CD.iso file or any Linux-Live-CD image containing gparted application
Burn Gparted-Live-CD to CD or DVD
Install Backupmenu to your N900
Reboot the N900 with keyboard ejected
In Bootmenu type 'w' to export the partitions in read/write-mode
Boot your PC from the Live-CD
If necessary start gparted
Choose the device (hard disk) in the upper right drop down menu should be some 30GB size.
Right click the first partition (approx27GB) and choose 'Resize or Move', use the right handle to shrink the partition.
Click 'Resize'-button (Dont worry you will be asked to apply actions later)
Right click on the free space between the first and the second partition (approx.2GB) and choose 'New', choose a file-system and add a label for easier identification.
Do not touch the third, aka swap-partition.
Now click apply in the upper toolbar and accept the changes to be applied.
Just do the same for the external card from the dropdown menu above.
If everything is resized successfully, shut down the PC
On the N900 press 'q' to quit backupmenu and restart Maemo.

Thanks michaaa62 for the help.Now that I have created a partition named debian on emmc I have to mount it.Here is my fstab output

Did I really made a 3GB partition?If so how can I mount it?When i tried to mount that it says device is busy

And the df -h output is this
Nokia-N900:/#

Any one please?

The fstab is auto-generated by a script, which does only look for the entries you have, nothing more.
You will have to edit this script for your new partition to get mounted during boot later. Please show the output of to look for the partitions. Then check the file system to be sure that the system really will work with your partitionwill show all the file systems and the

Thanks for the reply

sfdisk -l output is

[CODE]Nokia-N900:~# lshal | grep volume
block.is_volume = false (bool)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_ab8da96c_f992_4e5c_8bc0_bfb814427c5a'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_ab8da96c_f992_4e5c_8bc0_bfb814427c5a' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'ext3' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'filesystem' (string)
volume.fsversion = '1.0' (string)
volume.ignore = false (bool)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = 'debian' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'acl', 'user_xattr', 'data='} (string list)
volume.mount_point = '' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 6289408 (0x5ff800) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 32015122432 (0x774400000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 4 (0x4) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 25775046656 (0x600500000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x83' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 3220176896 (0xbff00000) (uint64)
volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
volume.uuid = 'ab8da96c-f992-4e5c-8bc0-bfb814427c5a' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_0a1bc5ed_ce17_4647_b79f_3116a4a13611'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_0a1bc5ed_ce17_4647_b79f_3116a4a13611' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'ext3' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'filesystem' (string)
volume.fsversion = '1.0' (string)
volume.ignore = false (bool)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = true (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = '' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'acl', 'user_xattr', 'data='} (string list)
volume.mount_point = '/home' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 4194304 (0x400000) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 32015122432 (0x774400000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 2 (0x2) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 28995256320 (0x6c0408000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x83' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 2147483648 (0x80000000) (uint64)
volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
volume.uuid = '0a1bc5ed-ce17-4647-b79f-3116a4a13611' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part3_size_805306368'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part3_size_805306368' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'swap' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'other' (string)
volume.fsversion = '2' (string)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = '' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount_point = '' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 1572864 (0x180000) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 32015122432 (0x774400000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 3 (0x3) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 31142739968 (0x740408000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x82' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 805306368 (0x30000000) (uint64)
volume.uuid = '' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_4BB1_E781'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_4BB1_E781' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'vfat' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'filesystem' (string)
volume.fsversion = 'FAT32' (string)
volume.ignore = false (bool)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = true (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = 'Nokia N900' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list)
volume.mount_point = '/home/user/MyDocs' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 50341824 (0x30027c0) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 32015122432 (0x774400000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 1 (0x1) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 32768 (0x8000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x0c' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 25775013888 (0x6004f8000) (uint64)
volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
volume.uuid = '4BB1-E781' (string)
block.is_volume = false (bool)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_06c6b944_9757_4f1c_97d2_ebbf564dda3b'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_06c6b944_9757_4f1c_97d2_ebbf564dda3b' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'swap' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'other' (string)
volume.fsversion = '2' (string)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = '' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount_point = '' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 2045952 (0x1f3800) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 15931539456 (0x3b5980000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 2 (0x2) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 14883487744 (0x377200000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x82' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 1047527424 (0x3e700000) (uint64)
volume.uuid = '06c6b944-9757-4f1c-97d2-ebbf564dda3b' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_5009_A603'
block.is_volume = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_5009_A603' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'vfat' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'filesystem' (string)
volume.fsversion = 'FAT32' (string)
volume.ignore = false (bool)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = true (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = '' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list)
volume.mount_point = '/media/mmc1' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 29067264 (0x1bb8800) (uint64)
volume.partition.flags = {} (string list)
volume.partition.label = '' (string)
volume.partition.media_size = 15931539456 (0x3b5980000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 1 (0x1) (int)
volume.partition.scheme = 'mbr' (string)
volume.partition.start = 1048576 (0x100000) (uint64)
volume.partition.type = '0x0b' (string)
volume.partition.uuid = '' (string)
volume.size = 14882439168 (0x377100000) (uint64)
volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
volume.uuid = '5009-A603' (string)

What's the output of the 'sfdisk -l' code
Did you try to add a logical or primary partition?