Could not allocate partitions as primary partitions

[Plankton]

Hi,

I have a new dell system that came with Window XP installed.
I used partion magic to reduce my windows partition down by 50GB.
I downloaded FC5 install CDs and booted off the first one.

* At the boot: prompt I just hit enter to do a graphical install.
* I skipped the media test
* I click "Next" and pick English
* I click "Next" and pick U.S. English
* now I choose "create custom layout" and click next

Now I see:

                              type   format  sizeMB  start end
V Hard Drives 
   V /dev/hda          
            /dev/hda1    vfat                31        1       4
            /dev/hda2    ntfs              55592     5     7091
            Free           free space      55608  7092   14180
            /dev/hda3    ntfs              yada yada yada
            /dve/hda4    vfat              etc etc etc

I highlight the "Free space" and then click the "New" button.
The "Add Partition" dialog box appears and I try and make
the '/' partitions by setting:

- Mount point to '/'
- File System type to 'ext3'
- Size(MB) 1000
- "Fixed size"
- X Force to be priamry partitions

Then I click the "OK" button then BOOM!
I get the "Error Partitioning" error message box which says:

Could not allocate requested partitions: Partitioning failed:
Could not allocate partitions as primary partitions.

So ... I can't create any linux partitions ... and can't install Fedora Core 5

Please tell what I am doing wrong.

[markkuk]

You can't have more than four primary partitions, and you already have all those slots filled. If you need more than four partitions on a disk you must create an extended partition that acts as a container for the additional "logical" partitions, but then you can have at most three primary partitions in addition to the extended one.

[Plankton]

How do I create an extended partion with disk druid?

[giulix]

Well, you said you used PM to shrink the windoze partition: It shouldn't have any problems in creating a logical partition, either...

[markkuk]

You must delete one of your existing primary partitions before you can create an extended partition.

[matelot]

It's likely that your Dell will have three primary partitions, two of which are hidden. You'll see normally in Windows your NTFS partition (C:\); the other two deal with the OS and system restore.

I used the gparted LiveCD and shrunk the NTFS partition. Defrag it properly first with something like Dirms-S - more thorough than Windows Defrag. In the free space create an extended partition. That is now effectively your fourth primary, but is best described as a container in which you can put several logical partitions formatted as you wish for Linux.

Then run your install programme.

That method worked for me. Hope it helps.

[Plankton]

Great info guys. Let me see if I have this right.
I need to delete one of my "primary" partitions:

* Which one I am not sure I'll try removing "/dev/hda4" one of the vfat probably put there by
Dell for some reason.

* I delete this partition with partition magic (PM), right?

I need to create an "extended" partition.

* create the extended partition with PM right?

* I do this by not booting off of the PM CD but installing PM, right?

Once I have create the extented partition with PM I boot off the FC5 install CD
and everything should go smoothly from there.

Again thanks I will try this out once I get home tonight.

[giulix]

PM 8 used to give you the option of creating 2 bootable floppy disks. I don't know if that has changed with later versions, or maybe you don't have a floppy drive (nowadays less and less people seem to care for one), anyway I guess it's the same if you do it from windoze.

[matelot]

Originally Posted by Plankton

Great info guys. Let me see if I have this right.
I need to delete one of my "primary" partitions:

* Which one I am not sure I'll try removing "/dev/hda4" one of the vfat probably put there by
Dell for some reason.

* I delete this partition with partition magic (PM), right?...

If you want to keep XP, I'd make sure what they are before deleting them...

[Plankton]

Hey! I got it working. Thanks to all of you for your help. I didn't even need to delete any partitions. Just had to change them to "logical" partition whatever that means. I guess it was a function of having to know that I could only have four "primary" partition and how to use partition magic (right click on things).