How to resize a non-LVM ext3 partition with "parted" command when found "Error: File system has an incompatible feature enabled"

How to resize a non-LVM ext3 partition with "parted" command when found "Error: File system has an incompatible feature enabled"

 Customer run Oracle Linux 5 as Guest OS On VMware ESXi host and need to increase the disk size on the existing /dev/sda device.

the target partition is /dev/sda3 which mounted in /oracle directory with ext3 filesystem type.

First, try to use "parted" with following format:

(parted) resize NUMBER START END

(replace NUMBER START END with values that shown from "print free".

For this case, 

(parted) resize 3 298GB 1268GB

The actual results, shown the error as below:

Error: File system has an incompatible feature enabled.

Solution:

The following below are steps to increase size on the target partition in Linux.

1. Reboot the Guest OS or run the following command to detect new disk space

# echo “- - -” > /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/scan

(Note: This step has done and customer got the error when using above command to increase disk size.)

2. Check the partition table

# fdisk -l 

3. unmount the partition

# umount /oracle

3. using parted to manage disk

# parted  /dev/sda

(parted)

- print the current partition table

(parted) print

- print the current partition table with free space available and record the number in End column in "Free Space" line

(parted) print  free

- Remove the partition the need to increase size

(parted) rm 3

- Make this partition again with new size

(parted) mkpart

Partition type? Primary/Extended? Primary

Filesystem type ? [ext2]? ext3

Start? 298GB                             (Start number in the previous sda3)

End? 1268GB                            (the number of End that shown in "Free Space" line)

- Recheck partition size for /dev/sda3

(parted) print

(parted) quit

4. Verify /dev/sda3 filesystem

# e2fsck  /dev/sda3

5. Resize the filesystem 

# resize2fs  /dev/sda3

6. Remount filesystem

# mount  /oracle

7. Check the size after resize completed

# df -h

Everything work fine.

Wisoot Amatariyakul