Unable to create partitions- it says I have no free space

[thecovester1]

Two nights ago I installed the KDE Spin of F15 and it all went smoothly. Then, I decided to try and use Windows' bootloader (it was a dual-boot) instead of GRUB. So I booted into Windows, spun up EasyBCD, added the correct entry for Fedora, and overwrote the MBR. I rebooted and tried to boot into Fedora, only to realize that the Windows Boot Manager had a failsafe that sensed when it didn't boot into Windows, and it stopped me from booting into Fedora.

At first, I booted into my live USB and tried to get GRUB back. After a couple Konsoles full of GRUB telling me that it couldn't mount the drive and install itself, I decided I was probably doing something wrong and it would be much easier to just reinstall Fedora.

I deleted the Fedora partitions I had made earlier from Windows (because it was already running). Then I booted into my live USB and tried to install Fedora. I clicked "OK" to make a partition (that would mount at /boot) that was 500 mb. It told me there wasn't enough space, but sitting right next to one of the already installed partitions was more than 190000 mb of space. So I tried to redo the partition with 250 mb, then I tried to make the swap partition and the main one (that would mount at /). I kept getting the error. I decided maybe it was a problem with the USB, so I rebooted into Windows and reinstalled the ISO onto the USB (with unetbootin) and repeated the process, only to get the same error.

Does anyone have any idea as to what's happening and how to fix it?

P.S- I tried to use the option to "Use Free Space" as well as doing it manually and got the same error. Also, I saw another thread (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=254006) where a person with my same type of compute (a Lenovo Y560) had a similar problem. It might be possible there's a hidden partition for Lenovo's purposes? Anyways, the other user's solution was to move the an extended partition somewhere. I'll be posting an fdisk soon, in case I have the same problem as the other user. The other user used GParted, but it looks like I can use Easeus too, which I already have installed.

P.P.S- Here's the fdisk in case it will help: Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3ffc3ff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 411647 204800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 411648 763366958 381477655+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 1219319808 1250263727 15471960 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda4 1155157953 1219319807 32080927+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1155158016 1219319807 32080896 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 4012 MB, 4012900352 bytes
120 heads, 55 sectors/track, 1187 cylinders, total 7837696 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 32 7837695 3918832 6 FAT16

Disk /dev/mapper/live-rw: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders, total 6291456 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/live-rw doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mapper/live-osimg-min: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders, total 6291456 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/live-osimg-min doesn't contain a valid partition table

[michaaa62]

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sector
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3ffc3ff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 411647 204800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 411648 763366958 381477655+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 1219319808 1250263727 15471960 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda4 1155157953 1219319807 32080927+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1155158016 1219319807 32080896 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFATYour partition table is borked...
You have all four primary partitions and still some free space which is not allocatable (Note the gap between the end of /dev/sda2 and the start of /dev/sda4
Did you set this table from windows or from linux? Is the stuff in /dev/sda5 important for you? Do you have some space available to back this up?
Basically you have to resize /dev/sda4 to fill the free space with gparted. If the free space becomes part of /dev/sda4, it also will get usable for new partitions.

[David Batson]

I ran into this or a similar error. Turned out that I had too many primary partitions (you can only have 4). I had to delete all the non-Windows partitions, then create an extended partition, then create logical drives in that extended partition. IIRC, I did this from Windows 7 disk management (or it might have been by using diskpart from a booted rescue CD), but I did not assign the partitions a drive letter, and I did not format the partitions from Windows.

[thecovester1]

Your partition table is borked...
You have all four primary partitions and still some free space which is not allocatable (Note the gap between the end of /dev/sda2 and the start of /dev/sda4
Did you set this table from windows or from linux? Is the stuff in /dev/sda5 important for you? Do you have some space available to back this up?
Basically you have to resize /dev/sda4 to fill the free space with gparted. If the free space becomes part of /dev/sda4, it also will get usable for new partitions.

I didn't set the table up at all. My table was just like that when I got my comp, except for the free space (I shrunk the Windows partition). Yes, the stuff in /dev/sda5 is important to me.

Anyways, thanks for the answer. I already did just that in gparted, like the other user did in the other thread and I'm about to go see if the install worked.

---------- Post added at 04:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 PM ----------

I ran into this or a similar error. Turned out that I had too many primary partitions (you can only have 4). I had to delete all the non-Windows partitions, then create an extended partition, then create logical drives in that extended partition. IIRC, I did this from Windows 7 disk management (or it might have been by using diskpart from a booted rescue CD), but I did not assign the partitions a drive letter, and I did not format the partitions from Windows.

Ouch. Good thing for me, then; I only had Windows partitions and I already had an extended partition set up, so I just had to put the free space in it. Hope it works!

EDIT: It works! Thanks a lot, michaaa and David!

[Luke M]

For future reference...

http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts

This program can convert primary partitions into logical, solving the problem.