How do I change from ext3 to ext2?

[Andrew Mathews]

Gerry Doris wrote:
> I want to do some disk rearranging and it would be really convenient if my 
> partition were ext2 instead of ext3.
> 
> I thought all I had to do was use tune2fs to convert the partitions to 
> ext2 and then modify fstab to indicate the partitions were ext2.  Well, 
> that ended in a kernel panic with an error that the journal couldn't be 
> found.
> 
> What's the right way?  Do I have to recompile the kernel? I'm using redhat 
> 8.
> 

No. You should run e2fsck after converting though. According to the 
tune2fs man page:
After setting or clearing sparse_super and  filetype  filesystem 
features,  e2fsck(8) must be run on the filesystem to return the 
filesystem to a consistent state.  Tune2fs will print a  message
requesting that the system administrator run e2fsck(8) if necessary.
You should run it with the -f option to force  the  tune2fs  operation 
to  complete even in the face of errors.  This option is useful  when 
removing  the  has_journal filesystem feature from a filesystem which 
has an external journal (or is corrupted such that it appears to  have 
an  external journal), but that external journal is not available.
-- 
Andrew Mathews
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