Partition issue...relatively minor
 

Currently I have 5 partitions (I cannot delete or resize 4 of them because one or both OS's would not boot then).

Adjacent to the primary Linux part is about 40 gigs of unallocated space that I want to allocate to the primary Linux part next to it and then add a small swap part after. The primary Linux part will not resize to take up the unallocated space and I had no idea if it would work but I tried to make a new part with the unallocated and then try to merge the new part with the primary but when I try to create the new part I get an error message stating I have exceeded the maximum number of parts.

Currently I am using Parted Magic on a live usb to try and resolve the issue.

I thought about removing the unnecessary oem and recovery parts for the other OS BUT I do not know if the other OS would boot then. Z/Z

Were you able to resolve the issue with Parted Magic?

It is hard to give good advice when we don't know the situation. Show us the output from the following command as root
/sbin/fdisk -l

That is probably because it was mounted at the time. You can't resize a mounted partition. You were unclear about what was booted and what was mounted when you tried that resize.

If your Linux partition is a primary partition, changing the number of primary or extended partitions before it would change its identity, which would be very complicated to clean up

If the unpartitioned space from which you want to create a swap partition is not inside an extended partition, then the fact that you have the max number of primary/extended partitions already will be an obstacle.

Those issues can be explained with less abstraction after we see the existing partition table.

One minor problem... I am used to executing commands from root and not elevating them to root :) I switched from BT to Mint because BT doesn't support my usb modems ( I know what you are thinking BUT... BT 5 doesn't support the modems but BT 2 and 3 did... so BT 5 deliberately doesn't support my modems )... and I spent many months researching how to enable the modems and came upon with 101 guesses about how to do so but no conclusive answers. Also I think the forum mods (at BT) hate me... they used to slap me with infractions for saying stuff like "what the hell!"...

That and I hated switching between OS's if I felt like having a break and watching some bleach or something. BT5 is VERY secure... long story long I am using Mint now and have no idea how to elevate beyond sudo. Z/Z

sudo is OK.

I'm guessing fdisk is in /sbin. If it is elsewhere or missing, you need to find it or maybe install it (or figure out which program you do have that gives you a copy/pasteable list of partition info).

If fdisk is in the usual place you can

25 mins... how far I am into house right now ( noting because my memory is uber crappy ). I'll switch over to Mint and search for fdisk info. Brb Z/Z

got it...sorta
 

not sure about incompatibility between gedit and wordpad but the formatting (document structure not drive structure) looks a little odd but here it is:


Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8d2a4582

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 16065 192779 88357+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 206848 30926847 15360000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 30926848 361762815 165417984 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 361764862 537542655 87888897 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 361764864 400824319 19529728 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 400826368 537542655 68358144 83 Linux

Linux is on extended partition,you have to resize the extended (sda4) before you can resize or move (sda5 or sda6).

Sounds easy enough to do but if grub gets picky about partition location or size I will probably lose Linux and the other OS in one shot but a deletion or all Linux parts with Parted Magic followed by an immediate reinstall of Mint will probably work.

I love experimentation more than you will ever know BUT I have spent several weeks tweaking the crap out of the other OS and almost have it running as smooth as I like. (The valid registry entries to disable the UAC prompts can be very hard to find) Z/Z

Is the unallocated space after the linux extended partition?

Oh btw I made a misrepresentation when I said you have to resize extended first.
If resizing larger extended must be done first.
If resizing smaller the partitions within the extended must be done first.

I'll explain the configuration after the other OS's parts... first is the logical, then primary and after that is the unallocated space. Z/Z

Edit: Originally it was logical, primary, swap and unallocated. I used parted magic to add swap to primary with the intent of adding unallocated to primary after that and then recreating the swap but after the swap was added to primary the unallocated could not be added to primary. Z/Z

I assume that you're referring to the unallocated space before sda1?
Also the space between sda1 & sda2?
You already have 4 primary partitions

You can easily use gparted live & move sda1 to the left
then sda2 to the left
also sda3 to the left
resize sda4 to the left, putting unallocated within sda4
then you have option of resizing or moving sda6 to the left & dealing with sda7
I have also done this on my machine & haven't had a problem, on my system I had to resize my / partition, which I did by resizing my home & in some cases I've actually taken the space from swap.

My / partition being sda6

UnfortunatelyI don't know squat about grub and how it would react to me moving parts around be I do know if grub doesn't see Linux the grub resque prompt comes up and I have to reconfigure the lappy's 2 OS's from scratch...very time consumming (esspecially the butterfly).

In order to get a workable configuration I stuck with what I knew. Since win and Linux can easily access files from c: I expanded it to all but 40 gigs. Leaving 15 for logical(/ or root), 20 for primary (/home) and 5 for swap.

It's not a pretty or elegant solution but it is a solution I have faith in.

I am in the middle of the Mint install right not. If I want to experiment with partitions later I can use one of my netbooks.

Thanks for your help everybody. Z/Z

Congrats on your solution

Assuming grub (not grub2) almost everything needed by grub is in the /boot/grub directory, which I assume is on sda5.

As long as the identities of the partitions don't change, all of the contents of /boot/grub remain valid across changes in the sizes and starting points of the partitions.

Part of grub is executed before the part in /boot/grub. I'm not sure myself what changes in partitions are possible without breaking that part of grub.

There is a simple command that can be used to reinstall that initial stage of grub (and reconnect it to the part in /boot/grub). I always forget where to look up that command, but I usually take the trouble to find it before changing partition sizes and I make sure the bootable CD I'm using supports it. Then I usually discover I don't need it, grub is still correctly connected after resizing partitions.

No, you don't. You just need a bootable USB or CD Linux and you need to use a simple to type (maybe hard to find) command to reconnect the MBR to the correct /boot/grub directory contents.

If you change the identities of the partitions, things are a bit trickier, but the /boot/grub/menu.lst file has pretty simple contents, so it still can be easy to fix. If you deleted the Dell utility partition then the Windows C: drive would change from sda2 to sda1, requiring a tiny change in /boot/grub/menu.lst. Conveniently, your Linux partitions would remain sda5 and sda6 even if you delete any or all of sda1 through sda3. If the identity of the linux partition changes, I think you need to make edits to /boot/grub/menu.lst plus edits to /etc/fstab and I wouldn't bet there aren't some other edits needed that I'm forgetting.

Finished the Mint install a little while ago and started adding/enabling certain features/programs...chrome wouldn't install but firefox is pretty fast anyways. By far I am most impressed with teamviewer's response time. From win 7 lappy to win 7 starter netbook it lags like crazy but from Mint lappy to win 7 starter netbook there is next to no delay... very pleased with that.

Is there a way to disable the very annoying password requests everytime I try to do something? Z/Z

Hi there,

what's this Z/Z you keep repeating over and over again?

[X] Doc CPU

Z/Z is the closest text representation I can make of a symbol I created when I was 15 that is the basis for a form of "encryption" I base on basic human thought progression. Created long before I learned about the early hacker habit of replacing S's with Z's. Z/Z

The annoying password is administrator password, just comfirmation that you have admin priviledges.
Did chrome complain about disk space or did you forget to make executeable?

I don't know much about hacking but I do know this: If someone really wants to screw over my machine they are going to do it regardless of any precautions I put in place short of disconnecting myself from all networks (any data I have that I value in any way is stored on flash drives or online and fortunately I have not cheesed off any hackers in a very long time).

I disabled all the UAC prompts in win 7 because it made the os run less smooth... I'm so impatient I actually enabled one click file execution, you will notice that for a os to have speed it needs to not only be fast but also "appear" to be fast... a verbose boot up is much better than a black screen, for example, because a black screen implies the OS either locked up or "appears" to be doing nothing as opposed to a verbose boot up :) Z/Z

Edit: The error prompt that pops up says that the chrome deb package is either corrupt or the permissions are not enabled but in properties I enabled read and write down the board and checked the box allowing the package to be run as an executable. That leaves corrupt file and unless Linux consistently has problems downloading files in tact I don't think that is the case. Z/Z