(Solved) QTParted help

[Funnyname]

Okay I may have screwed up - but hopefully this can be fixed.

I am running a Lenovo T61 and I have had Kubuntu installed on my laptop as a duel boot with XP-Pro for well over a month. Since I have found myself using Kubuntu 95% of the time, I decided that I want to give myself more room on the Linux side. I popped in the Kubuntu disk - booted the Live CD and went into QTParted. I decided to resize the XP partition down by about 25 Gigs. My plan was to use that 20 as a home folder or just storage.

I resized the sda1, committed and booted into XP so it could do what it needed to do to recover. I then went into XP Disk Manager and it will let me do nothing to the spare space. I went into QTParted again and again it is unavailable to format or create new partition.

This is the break out

01 - /dev/sda1 ntfs 58.59 GB
02 - /dev/sda-1 free 27.60 GB
03 - /dev/sda2 ext3 15.60 GB
04 - /dev/sda4 linux-swap 4.19 GB
05 - /dev.sda-1 free 2.30 MB
06 - /dev/sda3 fat32 5.80 GB
07 - /dev/sda3-1 free 0.46 MB

I would like number 02 to be usefully, but it seems to be still tied to the XP partition. I assumed this would work since this is how I created the Linux partitions during the install. I resized XP, committed and the booted into XP to test if it was okay and then went into Install again and created the Linux partitions.

Any help or suggestion would be helpful. As a very last resort I will reload XP, and then reinstall Kubuntu. But I would rather not do this. I have the install running in great form right now.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. PS - the number 05 and 07 partitions I assume are just where the walls fell when I created the partitions during the install. The 06 is the IBM re-install folder.

[Qqmike]

Re: QTParted help

Oops. You asked the wrong guy...

For work like this (which I have also done), no question in my mind:
Use GParted Live CD, NOT QtParted.

GParted: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
GParted how-to: http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

You might see how GParted sees all this so far.

[Craigels39]

Re: QTParted help

It looks like you are trying to have 5 partitions (NTFS, your new partition, ext3, swap, and fat32) but you aren't using an extended partition. The limit for primary partitions is 4.

If you are planning to use this new free space for linux purposes, the easiest remedy would be to expand your current ext3 partition to include the new free space. A better howto than I could write is here at HowtoForge: http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_resi..._partitions_p2

It uses an example with the free space right behind the current ext3 partition, but you should be able to make it work making the proper adjustments. Also, your Kubuntu LiveCD is a perfectly fine substitute for the Knoppix CD they use.

If you want it to still be a seperate partition, I would backup your 5.8 GB FAT32 partition to another partition (or a double-layer DVD). Then, from a LiveCD, erase the FAT32 and swap partitions. Create a new extended partition in the free space. Recreate the FAT32 and swap partitions in the extended partition. This should leave you with a free primary partition.
DOWNSIDE: you will probably have to update /etc/fstab to reflect the partition number changes of the swap and FAT32 partitions. Your primary partition numbers will also probably not be in sequential order. This won't stop anything from working, it's just not nice and neat.

[Funnyname]

Re: QTParted help

Forgot about the 4 primary limit. Your second suggest seems worth trying. The fat32 is nothing anyways - just the IBM install partition so it can go. I will try this and let you know.

Thanks

[toad]

Re: (Solved) QTParted help

If you do get rid of the FAT I'd create an extended partition first and then put a logical into it. For the future...