I have an HP laptop with Win 7 installed. I shrunk the 500GB and made a few sub parts two of which for Linux which Ubuntu is on now. i wanted to try Mandriva replacing Ubuntu, but had a problem in the partitioning. For some reason Mandriva 86-64.iso would only allow me to edit the two major partitions. It saw the smaller partitions including Ubuntu's but I couldn't change or mount them; even in Expert mode. Pic attached showing the partitions. The two basic are Ubuntu and swap.

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You pic looks odd! As per the color legend, it has 5 primary partitions+1 extended partition! All I know is we can make only 4 primary or 3 primary+1 extended partitions.

Is 2.93GB your swap and 40.69GB is your Ubuntu root partition? Is the partitioner able to delete it? I would suggest delete 2.93GB and 40.69GB partitions, extend your extended partition to fill the free space after deletion. Then try making partitions for linux. That way your current D drive will be sda5, other linux partitions would start from sda6 onwards.

If Mandriva partitioner is not able to edit try gparted/parted magic live cds.

Please wait for reply by other seniors. I'm equally confused.

Boot to a live CD of Gparted or Parted Magic [which contains Gparted] Delete all partitions that you are sure are not Windows 7 or Windows data partions.

Reboot Windows to be sure it still works.

Now boot to the Mandriva disk and when you get to the partition area select Custom and highlight the now blank partition and select AutoAllocate. Mandriva will create the needed 3 partitions [Root, Swap, Home] for you.

Easiest way I know of to do it.

Thanks for replying. What you say may be an option that I can try. It's moot now however as I have installed Sabayon for a trial run.
I'm including a pic of the actual Mandriva partitioning window. Duhhh!! I just saw it now previewing my post. The red on the end is Ubuntu that I could have edited; yikes embarrassing.

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