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/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02

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

 /sbin/tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02

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

/sbin/e2fsck -y /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02

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

mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02/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 want to permanently change the partition to ext2, remember to update the /etc/fstab file.