My system has a 400gb hard drive occupied only by Windows Vista.
The OpenSuse 11.1 installer’s default partitioning plan reduces Windows to 170gb.
How do I enlarge this?
I made the Linux partition smaller and it still doesn’t allow me to use the space gained to enlarge Windows.
And what is the “extended” partition, why cant I modify that?
Extended partion, read all about it: SDB:Basics of partitions, filesystems, mount points - openSUSE
As until now I did not install 11.1 on a disk allready completely used by an MS OS (except one where I completely destroyed Vista) I can not be sure. But in an earlier version there was a possibility to adapt the proposed shrinkage by a ruler. Maybe you should try more buttons when the proposal for partition is shown to you. Or hope somebody with more knowledge will come to the rescue 
Ive played with it for about a half hour now and gotten no where.
Ive used and learned Ubuntu before but I cant even get past OpenSuse’s installation.
If the two would share the same simple GUI partitioner that Ubuntu uses I would be looking at a beautiful desktop right now.
I understand now that the “extended” partition is a container for all the linux partitions. But still, even if I edit the linux partitions size, I dont think it will let me shrink the “extended” container itself.
BINR adjusted his/her AFDB on Thursday 23 Jul 2009 21:26 to write:
>
> I understand now that the “extended” partition is a container for all
> the linux partitions. But still, even if I edit the linux partitions
> size, I dont think it will let me shrink the “extended” container
> itself.
>
>
You can go “Nack” and choose the “Expet” partitioning.
Shrink the Vista to whatever amount you need then if you only want swap,
root, home you do not need to have an extended partition and can just use
the remainder, swap should be at least as big as your ram ( yes I know all
the arguments for and against and I still have an 4gig swap just in-case
something eats all the mem if it runs amok ) / should be 50gig if you want
to install loads of stuff system wide like Doom3, UT, and other very
important apps, and the rest for home.
Note these are just my prefs.
If you are going to need more partitions then create an extended one and put
them all in there ( except for the Vista one of course ) 
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
It is not about shrinking the extended partition. It is about regulating the size that the Windows partition must have. As baskitcaise says there is a button to go to expert mode. Did you try there?
When you have the right size for your Windiws partition, you can enter the data for your Linux partitions. You have two choices:
. Do as baskitcaise says and just add SWAP, / and /home. With Windows that makes four of them, the maximum.
. Or make the rest into an extend and create SWAP, / and /home in there. You could then even create other partions there (or leave space there for later usage).
I have no idea what “Nack” is, and there is nothing on that page about “Expert partitioning”.
I tried going back and removing “Automatic Configuration” but that didn’t change any thing. :disapointed:
baskitcaise adjusted his/her AFDB on Thursday 23 Jul 2009 21:35 to write:
> You can go “Nack” and choose the “Expet” partitioning.
That should have read “back” and “expert”, don`t know why I had fat fingers
last night.
Even if you cannot find the expert selection ( though I cannot see why
unless the source you are using is not an official one as it is in the
install setup ) just wait till it makes the suggestion then you can use the
partitioner to change it as indicated.
HTH
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
I guess ill just have to wait for a version of OpenSuse that has a GUI partitioner in the installer rather then a text one. 
This is not going to help you. It is allready a GUI.
One more time.
You get a window which shows you all the things that are going to happen. Among them things like software to bb installed, date and time, more, and disk partitioning. You there click on any of thh headings of things that you think you want to alter. In your case you click on the heading of the list where it says things like: shirink partion …, create partition …, etc.
In what then shows up there is somewhere an Expert button. When you can not find that, you will not find it in many openSUSE version to come.
(And IMHO 170Gb is stil 170 Gb to much for Vista rotfl! ).
BINR wrote:
> I guess ill just have to wait for a version of OpenSuse that has a GUI
> partitioner in the installer rather then a text one.
you are correct: openSUSE is not for all possible user experience levels…
have you not found happiness in the Partitioning/Install Guide at
http://tinyurl.com/5krulv, or is that too much reading for you?
otoh, if you are extremely happy with the “simple GUI partitioner that
Ubuntu uses” i’d think it should be possible to use that and THEN
the openSUSE install script would ‘see’ the already installed Vista
and Ubuntu partitioned disk and offer to use the disk as partitioned
and simply overwrite the Ubuntu system…
but, i’ve never tried it…you can probably find exactly how to do
that by using this forums advanced search function…i’m pretty sure i
read that someone else did something similar (that is, SET their
desired partitions BEFORE beginning the openSUSE install.)
–
brassy
You could try resizing the Windows partition with a live CD utility such as GParted or SystemRescueCd prior to installing openSUSE.
GParted’s GUI may be similar to the one you’re familiar with in Ubuntu.
Hi,
I am in a similar situation. I’ve a 250GB HDD. The partitions are as follows:
linux@linux:~> sudo /sbin/fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x27c80bf7
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1394 11193344 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1394 9683 66581484 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 10318 10331 102400 6 FAT16
/dev/sda4 21440 25303 31027200 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 21440 25303 31026176 7 HPFS/NTFS
linux@linux:~>
sda1- Recovery partition
sda2- Pre-installed Vista
sda3- 100MB(Primary) for boot partition
sda4- extended partition
sda5- secondary partition
Now the problem is that there is lot of unallocated space left behind. So I want to increase my extended partiton to use that empty space. However, when I try to resize that using yast partition editor it gives me an error: extended partiton cannot be resized.
How shall I can about it so that I can successfully install openSUSE11.1
First, it is not very clever to add your problem to another ones problem. Answers will get entangled: is the answer to problem 1 or 2? A new problem with a title that explains what it is about will atrackt the right guru’s.
Then about your extended. It is very strange that someone did not make the extended partition until the end of the disk. That is indeed throwing space away. You can not enlarge the partition. You must remove and recreate it. For that you must first remove al the logical partitions inside it!. That may sound a not very friendly, but who the … reckons with people that do not create the extended partition until the end of the disk?
Now there are two possibilities:
a) You are not interested in the contents of partition 5 anymore. That makes it easy, remove 5, remove 4, make a new extened 4, (and this time until the end, fdisk will offer you this as the default), and then create what you want inside the extended.
b) You want to keep 5 as it is. In that case write down carefully what the start end end addresses are (they are in your post), remove 5, remove 4, create extended 4, create 5 with exactly the same addresses as before. As all this editing writes only to the partition table, no data in 5 will be changed but a backup should however be made as always.
I do not understand what you mean by “sda3- 100MB(Primary) for boot partition”. Who’s boot partition? It is a FAT16 thus not for Linux. And for Linux you do not require a seperate partition to mount on /boot.
When you do not need this one anymore, then not only remove 5 and 4, but also 3. Create an extended (will be numbered 3) and create inside it partitions for Swap, / and /home. IInstrall openSUSE and enjoy.
(Needless to says that my advice would be to remove all partions, create three (Swap, / /home) and install rotfl! )
I thought its not wise to start multiple threads for the same problem. The basic problem looks same that is resizing the partitions.
You can not enlarge the partition. You must remove and recreate it. For that you must first remove al the logical partitions inside it!. That may sound a not very friendly, but who the … reckons with people that do not create the extended partition until the end of the disk?
That’s the simplest approach and I am aware of it. However there are few tools that allow you to resize the extended partitions too. So I was looking for help regarding them.
Now there are two possibilities:
b) You want to keep 5 as it is. In that case write down carefully what the start end end addresses are (they are in your post), remove 5, remove 4, create extended 4, create 5 with exactly the same addresses as before. As all this editing writes only to the partition table, no data in 5 will be changed but a backup should however be made as always.
Thanx for this advice. I hope it works.
I do not understand what you mean by “sda3- 100MB(Primary) for boot partition”. Who’s boot partition? It is a FAT16 thus not for Linux. And for Linux you do not require a seperate partition to mount on /boot.
I read that for multiboot it’s better to have a 100MB primary boot partition. For that I created this 100MB primary boot. However, now I’ll delete it.
The OP is installing and the installer wants to SHRINK his windows partition (that fills the rest of his disk at the moment). He wants to do LESS shrinking to be done, not INCREASING (because nothing is done at the moment he asks for help) this windows partition. That is definitly not the same as INCREASING an existing extended partition.
There may be tools that can repair your miscreated extended partition, I do not know one of them. And when you want a good change of getting to somebody who knows, make a new thread with a title like “How to increase Extended partition”.
As said you do not need a seperate partition for /boot. I do not see what would be the advantage in a multi boot environment, that would mean 3 extra partitions on a three Linux multi boot environment! But in any case, when you create a partition by a tool like fdisk for Linux usage, give them a proper id like 82 (Linux swap / Solaris) or 83 (Linux).
I call for peace. It’s a community and I want (to) help but no flames (pointing fingers or finding faults)
I am very peacfull. As you may have noted I try to help you by::
a) trying to let you make maximum use of the forum by explaining that a problem gets most attention when addressed in its own well titled thread;
b) by nevertheless trying to give answers to your problem within this thread which does address something very different. When I can not convince you of that last fact then I am sorry, must be my fault.