[CLUE-Tech] Partitioning/Formatting newbie question. - Fixed

[Chris Greene]

OK, this is why I don't like asking the list these questions.  I always
realize how simple it was.  Remember this part?

1) /dev/hda4          1564      2434   6996307+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
2) /dev/hda5          1564      1628    522081   83 linux
3) /dev/hda6          1629      1693    522081   83 linux
4) /dev/hda7          1694      1742    393561   83 linux
5) /dev/hda8          1743      1754     96358+  82 linux

line #1 says that the extended partition was from blocks 1564 to 2434.
hda5 through hda8 consisted of 1564 to 1754.  I figured 1755 to 2434 was the
free space, but I didn't try it because I was tired of reinstalling.  Just
now I figured I would just go for it.  I went into fdisk and created a new
parition and it defaulted to the block 1755 and ended at 2434 so I figured
that was correct.  I wrote the partition table, rebooted and it worked!


-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us
[mailto:clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us]On Behalf Of Chris Greene
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 10:35 PM
To: clue-tech at clue.denver.co.us
Subject: RE: [CLUE-Tech] Partitioning/Formatting newbie question.


Whoa nelly.  Don't be disrepecting 7.3! Actually I have RH 9 on my main
linux machine, but when I installed it on this old machine it wouldn't read
the cdrom.   When I tried to mount a ton of errors flew by.  I didn't feel
like dealing with it at the moment so I just put 7.3 back on.  That and the
9.0 gui install process was horribly slow compared to 7.3.  Anyhow, yeah I
tried to delete hda4, rebooted and got a kernel panick.  I'm not sure what
that means, but it didn't sound good.  I didn't know what to do at that
point besides shoving some prozac in the floppy drive.  I'm going to try to
create a partition from what should be that free space based on those
blocks.

-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us
[mailto:clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us]On Behalf Of David Anselmi
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 9:30 PM
To: clue-tech at clue.denver.co.us
Subject: Re: [CLUE-Tech] Partitioning/Formatting newbie question.


Chris Greene wrote:

> I usually try to figure things out by myself by
> experimenting and searching the web, but I have not
> found much on this so I figure I will ask the masters.
>  I installed RH 7.3 last night, deleted ALL partitions
> and left 5 gigs of free space available.

RH 7?  Can't you find anyone to give you newer CDs than that?  Well,
maybe there are other issues.

> Name         Flags  Part Type  FS Type
> Size (MB)
> /dev/hda1    Boot    Primary    Linux
> 258.86
> /dev/hda2            Primary    Linux
> 8001.13
> /dev/hda3            Primary    Linux
> 4000.57
> /dev/hda4            Primary    Win95 Extended (LBA)
> 6832.34

You're problem is that there are only 4 primary partitions available on
Wintel hardware.  By using them all you can't have any more.  If you
change one of them from primary to extended then you'll be able to put
logical partitions inside the extended one.

Here's the way it should look:

|[ primary ]|[ primary ]|[ primary ]|[       extended        ]
|           |           |           |[ logical ]|[  logical  ]
|    hda1   |    hda2   |    hda3   |    hda5   |     hda6   |

I didn't show hda4, the extended partition, and cfdisk won't show it to
you either, though fdisk will.  cfdisk is picky about giving you a sane
partition table -- which is usually just what you want.

[...]

> I also ran 'fdisk -l /dev/hda' and received the
> following:
>
>    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id
> System
> /dev/hda1   *         1        33    265041   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda2            34      1053   8193150   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda3          1054      1563   4096575   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda4          1564      2434   6996307+   f
> Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
> /dev/hda5          1564      1628    522081   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda6          1629      1693    522081   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda7          1694      1742    393561   83
> Linux
> /dev/hda8          1743      1754     96358+  82
> Linux swap

Looks like you had it right at one point.  The Id column is the type of
partition (83 for Linux, 82 for swap, f for Win 95).  It says Win 95
because that's the type that's marked in the partition table.  It
doesn't have anything to do with what's actually in the partition.

Try using fdisk to delete hda4.  Then recreate it as an extended
partition and use the same start and end.  You probably want to record
the output of fdisk -lu /dev/hda.  That will show you start and end in
sectors.  Then when you run fdisk /dev/hda, type u to change units to
sectors.

After you (w)rite the partition table and (q)uit, reboot and you should
have access to hda5-8.  Then you can create a new hda9 with the free
space (use cfdisk; you could have done this when you were running fdisk,
but why tempt fate).

You have to reboot because the kernel won't get the new partition table
while it's in use (because you're running off hda).

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Dave


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