Resizing Partitions

[ece30675]

Heres my existing structure:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 155061 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1       41613    20972826    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda2           41614       43694     1048824   82  Linux swap
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda3   *       43695       63536    10000368   83  Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda4           63537      130110    33553296    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

I have 11.99Gb of unused space on my HD which I'd like to use. When I try and create an extended partition, fdisk tells me:

You must delete some partition and add an extended partition first

Now Linux supports 4 primary partitions, so how can I safely create the extended partition without disturbing anything stored elsewhere?

[Tyr_7BE]

It's not just linux...it's just the way computers are designed these days...you get 4 partitions, and if you want more you need to make the last one extended.

I'm not sure how you'd do this without losing data. You can try gparted and see if that has any features that help you out. http://gparted.sf.net/ . It uses libparted, which has these features: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/ . I've never used it myself but maybe you'll get lucky.

Alternatively, do you have enough space on /dev/hda1, 2, or 3 to copy over your /dev/hda4 data and then wipe hda4 and make an extended partition?

Hope that helps.

[Compunuts]

[quote author=Tyr_7BE link=board=1;threadid=10061;start=0#msg91114 date=1102817807]
Alternatively, do you have enough space on /dev/hda1, 2, or 3 to copy over your /dev/hda4 data and then wipe hda4 and make an extended partition?
[/quote]If then, you will have to remove /dev/hda4 which is Windows95 partition. If Windows is on there, I don't think it will like to reside in extended partition.

[ece30675]

Thanks guys, I'll give that a try!

[Tyr_7BE]

[quote author=Compunuts link=board=1;threadid=10061;start=0#msg91117 date=1102830271]
[quote author=Tyr_7BE link=board=1;threadid=10061;start=0#msg91114 date=1102817807]
Alternatively, do you have enough space on /dev/hda1, 2, or 3 to copy over your /dev/hda4 data and then wipe hda4 and make an extended partition?
[/quote]If then, you will have to remove /dev/hda4 which is Windows95 partition. If Windows is on there, I don't think it will like to reside in extended partition.
[/quote]

Mmm Compunuts is right. If windows isn't on a primary partition it gets mad at you and won't boot. If hda4 is holding Windows you might be out of luck here, as extended partitions can only reside on the fourth primary partition (from what I understand)

[Schotty]

actually it can be any partition from 1-4, but usually is 4.