I have an HP laptop with Windows 7 with the disk setup as follows:
System: 199MB NTFS primary partition
C: 230 MB NTFS primary partition
D: Recovery 15 MB NTFS primary partition
HPTools : FAT32 103MB primary partition
Unallocated 219 MB.
The unallocated space is the result of my reducing (in Windows) the C: partition so as to create space for OpenSuse 11.2.
My problem is that when I tried to create a swap and a Linux partition in the free space (with GParted), I get the message that I cannot have more than 4 primary partitions and that I must create an extended partition.
How do I go about creating an extended partition SAFELY without destroying the content of the existing partitions?
Thank you.
The partition sizes you indicate can not be correct for a windows7 install. Do you mean GB instead of MB?
Creating an extended partition in your free space is totally safe.
Any time You do anything to do with partitioning you are not sure about ALWAYS ensure you have checked your backups and they are up to date.
The partition sizes you indicate can not be correct for a windows7 install. Do you mean GB instead of MB?
Yes I mean GB. Sorry.
There is no need imho to do this using gparted. When that part of the disk is unused, I have no doubt that the openSUSE installer will offer you a nice partitioning using an extended partition. When you have doubts about that offer, either change it before you carry on with the installation, or write it down and come here for advice.
Sorry I see you have 4 primaries already.
Can you make an image of your recover or HP tools partition
and delete that.
Just a note, you can only have 4 primary partitions and extended partitions have to start from one of those.
I have tried that of course but the installation procedure says that the Windows partitions will be deleted and new partitions will be created: a 2GB swap, a 20 GB root partition and a /home partition of 443GB i.e. the rest of the disk.
In other words, no more Windows and therefore no dual boot.
This is not what I want to do.
That sounds like a good idea.
I’ll try that! Thanks.
Sorry, dvhenry is correct. Forget my post.
When it is possible do follow dvhenry’s suggestion by:
. saving the HP Tools partition;
. deleting it
. create an extended partition;
. create a logical partition to be used as the HP Tools partition;
. copy the HP Tools partition back;
. check if everything is still working OK (especialy the HP Tools thingy, whatever it is for);
. then either create 3 partitions for openSUSE (for swap, / and /home), or leave it to the installer to do that (under your supervision of course).
I have created an extended partition and a logical partition for for HP_TOOLS.
The disk is now configured as follows:
System NTFS 199 MB
C: NTFS 230GB
Unallocated space 219GB
D: Recovery NTFS 15.72GB
F: HP_TOOLS Extended partition 94 MB
I have then tried to install OpenSuse 11.2 with the DVD and let the program determine the required disk partitioning.
I end up with the same problem as before. The suggested partitioning is as follows:
Delete partition /dev/sda1 (199MB)
Delete Windows partition /dev/sda2 (230GB) - Resize impossible due to inconsistent fs. Try checking fs under Windows.
Delete Windows partition /dev/sda3 (15.72GB) - Resize impossible…etc
Delete partition /dev/sda4 (94 MB)
Delete partition /dev/sda5 (94 MB)
Create swap partition dev/sda1 (2.01GB)
Create root partition dev/sda2 (20GB) with ext4
Create partition dev/sda3 (443.75GB) with ext4
I therefore aborted the installation and tried to create the LINUX partitions with GParted. As before I get the message that I cannot have more than 4 primary partitions. This is strange since I now have 3 primary partitions and one extended partitions.
I am realy stuck.>:)
Thanks for any suggestions
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From the point where the installer makes you this indecent proposal, you can still change everything by going to Expert mode or how it is called. There you can make your own partitions and let the Windows partitions untouched. Remember that all you do there is only telling what the partitioner of the installer must do when you in the end click Proceed. You can always back out. So you can make a set-up, see what the installer says, change again and only when you are rely satisfied you must carry on.
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I do not know this Gparted, but I suppose you have to tell it to create a Logical partition when you want a Logical partition (inside the Extended partition). When you tell it to create a Primary partition it will of course protest if you have already three Primary and one Extended partition.
I am not sure what your HP_TOOLS partition holds. this is why I suggested imaging.
Have you imaged that partition and used gparted to delete it ?
If so from that point you should be able to use either gparted or the SUSE installer to partiton the drive and complete the install’
One more point,imaging gives you an exact copy and if you verify that image before deleting the partition you can always return your system to its previous state.
hcw.
Gparted is a front end to parted and many other linux tools. It is very user frendly. I highly recommend its use in situations where partitioning is the issue.
I have deleted the extended partition (after creating an image) and everything went smoothly after that.
rotfl!rotfl!
pleased to read that.
I am confident you will find this and any further config that may, or may not, be required in OpenSUSE well worth the effort.
Oh, I am not against using it. But Iam an old hand and fdisk does all the partitioning for me. Also when no GUI (headless system) is available. It is always there, on live CDs, install DVDs, on every Linux bootable with an /sbin. You could even use a RedHat 8 or an SuSE 9 CD!
I do agree that the use of a CLI tool such as fdisk is a very good option in a situation like this,(It would also give quicker results), but because in this case he was already using and familiar with a tool capable of fixing his problem, I felt that giving a few hints on using gparted to do the job would not be a bad idea.
That is all nice and fine, but until now I have not seen any trustworthy output about the partition situation on that disk in the whole thread. Until I have that, I do not give an advice because that may ruin the whole thing.