Can't format Unallocated free space

[txcrittr]

New to Fedora. Fairly new to Linux.
I have an Abit KV8 Max3 motherboard with an Athlon 64 3200+ processor. Hard drive is a 114GB Maxtor. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro agp.

I have Win2k and Ubuntu installed already. I used Knoppix to shrink my Win2k NTFS partition.

QtParted currently reports

01 /dev/hda1 ntfs Active 35.52GB
02 /dev/hda3 ext3 4.66GB
03 /dev/hda-1 free 43.06GB
04 /dev/hda4 extended 964.84MB
05 /dev/hda5 linux-swap 956.99MB <This is a subset of hda4>
06 /dev/hda6 fat32 29.78GB

When I use Knoppix to run Qtparted, the first thing I must do is # swapoff /dev/hda5 to stop Knoppix from using the swap partition.

After that I can delete, format, move or perform some function to all partitions except /dev/hda-1. I can only get properties.

When I tried to install FC4 (boot from cd, then load from iso images on the hard drive), it tells me that the partition can't be allocated as a primary partition and stops installation. This happens wheather I use Disk Druid or let FC4 do it.

Just on a lark I went into my win2k to try to format that partition and it aint happening there either.

Any suggestions on how to get this 40 some odd gigs back in service without losing win2k or Ubuntu?

[Mat]

one harddisk can only have 4 primary partitions.
you can create an extended partition, that counts as a primary partition too but works like a container, meaning you can create other partitions inside it.

example on a 80GB disk:
10GB primary partition
70GB extended
- 20GB partition inside the extended partition
- 20GB partition inside the extended partition
- ..
- ..


that wasn't to technical an explanation, but you should get the idea


Mat

[txcrittr]

Thanks a bunch! I downloaded GParted Live and ran it just a couple of minutes ago. It told me about the 4 Primary partitions thing, so I got that fixed. Now I'm trying to install FC4 without much luck so far.

[Mat]

We'll tackle this thing, one little baby step at a time :)

just create a new thread and someone might be able to help



Mat