Error Partitioning

[negativeEntropy]

I'm trying to dual boot my XP laptop. I had a 140 GB Hd and used Partition Magic to resize it to 120 GB. So I pop in Fedora 9, and when it comes to partitioning it says I don't have enough free space. No matter what I try, (Use free space, remove linux partition, custom) it says I don't have enough free space.

Attached is the table.

Why are there so many partitions, and why do sda3 and sda5 have the same start and end? Oh and why won't it let me make new partitions. FYI, reinstalling windows is not an option.

[stoat]

It's because you have three primary partitions and one extended partition which means any additional partitions that you create must be logical partitions inside the extended partition. But the extended partition /dev/sda3 is completely filled by a single logical partition /dev/sda5 (which is also why /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda5 have the same cylinders). Your free space is outside the extended partition. In this situation, the free space must be inside the extended partition. You can do that with your partition manager.

[negativeEntropy]

So I'm kinda new at all this. I think I understand what you said. Is there a limit on number of partitions? How can you tell which is primary? Do you know if sda3, sda5, and sda4 are used by my windows? Would there be anything wrong with deleting them and installing in the free space (assuming it automatically adds to the free space)? What do you think sda1 is for, its so small?

[negativeEntropy]

Well I figured out that sda1 is a dell utility partition. Don't know what the others are.

[NeilEvan814]

sda1 is most likely a boot partition for windows..
I dual boot windows and linux and my partitions were set after shrinking my windows from 120 down to 80gb. sda3 is a primary boot partition sda4 extended sda5 Ibeleive is swap space
Neil

[markkuk]

I think I understand what you said. Is there a limit on number of partitions? How can you tell which is primary?
You can have up to 15 partitions total (technically you could have more but current Linux kernel can't access more than 15), and partition numbers 1-4 are primary. Partitions numbered 5 and above are logical partitions and they must be inside an extended partition which is one of the four primary partitions. See: http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.2/Installation_Guide/ch-partitions-x86.html

[negativeEntropy]

Wow, cool. Thanks for the info. I found out that Dell has reserved a **** load of partitions on this thing. Well I guess only 3, but that only leaves 1 left for an OS.

sda1 = Dell Utility partition
sda2 = Windows XP
sda3 = Dell Media Direct 3.0 OS
sda4 = Dell Ghost Recovery Partition

That sucks. Thanks for that Dell. I think I'm just going to delete the media direct partition since I never use media direct. This is technically a school computer, so I don't really want to screw with it too much.

And I've already put the IT guy through hell with my last install of linux, which is interesting. I had previously installed FC8 on this same machine and I never had any partitioning errors like I have now. Anyway I had FC8 installed for a while and then my XP partition had to be repaired. But for some reason, the windows repair utility wouldn't boot. I remember a forum saying it was due to the dual boot configuration of FC8. Would anyone know why this was and how I can avoid it in my current install of FC9?

[orsula]

Hi,
Would anyone know why I have file system 'Unknown' in Gparted for my very own F8? I have a dual boot and all works well, but I thought the ext3 should be recognized? My fstab is:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda5 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda2 /mnt/win ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0


thanks much.

[stoat]

Would anyone know why I have file system 'Unknown' in Gparted for my very own F8?Hello orsula,

Yeah, it's because your Fedora 8 system is in an LVM physical volume (/dev/sda6). Gparted has always displayed them like that. So it's normal and everything is okay.

Gparted also cannot perform any actions on LVM PVs. I have heard that the very latest versions of gparted have LVM support, but I have not looked into that for myself (I don't use LVM). What this means is that if you ever need to do any partition maintenance for your Fedora system such as resizing or moving that you normally would have done with gparted, you instead must cross over into the parallel universe of Logical Volume Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_volume_management) and teach yourself an entirely new way of thinking about your partitions and an entirely new set of commands. But everything will be fine and work normally until that day.

[orsula]

Cheers!. Thanks much. ;)

[pmowry911]

You can have up to 15 partitions total (technically you could have more but current Linux kernel can't access more than 15), and partition numbers 1-4 are primary. Partitions numbered 5 and above are logical partitions and they must be inside an extended partition which is one of the four primary partitions. See: http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.2/Installation_Guide/ch-partitions-x86.html


Oh, so that's my problem. I have a HP8510p with a 150Gb drive and was going to multiboot.
I have:
20Gb Primary for Vista
20Gb Primary for XP
20Gb UnAllocated
90Gb Logical drive as 1 NTFS volume.

All my apps and data go on the 90Gb partition so I made it NTFS since it was the only format I was aware of that was common to all 3 and can be that can be that big.

So I was trying to create 3 partitions in the unallocated:
128Mb /boot
19328Mb /
1024 Swap

So I assume I ran out of primary partition numbers and not space like the installer complained. So what would you suggest I do to have all 3 systems? I was avoiding LVM, but maybe I should make a /boot and then swap and root in LVM anyway. I was trying to avoid LVM to see if I could get Vista/XP to access the ext3 partition. Or maybe I should just kill the XP partition and run it in a VM for the apps I have that wond run in Vista.

Thanks for the help,

-Patrick

[stoat]

So what would you suggest I do to have all 3 systems?Use logical partitions. Unlike MS systems that require at least one primary partition for boot loader files, Linux systems require no primary partitions at all. All of the partitions for your Linux system can be logical partitions. I have Fedora and Debian booting and working just fine entirely in logical partitions.

[stoat]

Hello again pmowry911,

The silence is deafening here. I'm concerned that maybe I should clarify somewhat. Your posted information made it sound to me like you have two primary partitions, one extended partition, and some unallocated space. I strongly suspect from your wording, that the extended partition is completely filled by a single logical partition. I think that because people do that all the time (not to mention that 20+20+20+90=150=the size of your drive). It therefore appears at first that you can create only one additional primary partition and that is all.

But it is possible for you to use a partition manager like the GParted LiveCD (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php) to "slide" the beginning of the extended partition over into the unallocated space. The extended partition gets larger, but the 90 GB logical partition inside it remains the same. That has the effect of moving the unallocated space inside the extended partition where it can be used to create additional logical partitions. See?

So you could create the last primary partition as a small 100 MB partition for the Fedora boot partition, for example. Then move the extended partition's beginning point over next to the third primary partition. Then create the remaining Fedora partitions inside the extended partition.

All of that may be hard to follow in words. But if you just try it, I think you will see what I mean. GParted will allow you to "play around" some and cancel before any changes are applied. Some visual aid...My best guess at the current partition situation...

90 GB extended partition
1st 2nd containing and completely
primary primary filled by a 90 GB logical
partition partition partition.
+---------+---------+---------+------------------------------------+
| | | |+----------------------------------+|
| 20 GB | 20 GB | 20 GB || 90 GB ||
| Vista | XP | Free || Logical ||
| | | |+----------------------------------+|
+---------+---------+---------+------------------------------------+


What I think you can do about it (create the last primary partition
and then move the beginning of the extended partition over next
to it)...


110 GB extended partition
1st 2nd containing a 90 GB logical
primary primary partition and 20 GB unallocated
partition partition space.
+---------+---------+-+---------------------------------------------+
| | | | +----------------------------------+|
| 20 GB | 20 GB | | | 90 GB ||
| Vista | XP | | | Logical ||
| | | | +----------------------------------+|
+---------+---------+-+---------------------------------------------+
^ ^
| |
3rd +------ ~20 GB unallocated space now inside
primary the extended partition for additional
partition logical partitions for Fedora.Look back and forth between the upper and lower diagrams and you can kinda see the extended partition's beginning "slide" over to the end of the small third primary partition. That's exactly what you can do to it with GParted.

Better? Maybe? Your actual partition layout may not look exactly as I imagined it. I guessed. But I hope you get the idea now. At least it's something to think about.