Olaus

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I have this HD partition table, according to gparted:
sda1: Dell tools (partition hidden from Win XP)
sda2: Windows XP
sda3: Dell recovery (partition hidden from Win XP)

I would like to shrink sda2 in order to add an extended partition right of it.
If I do like this, will sda3 find itself as something else after this operation (because it wont be the third partition any more), or is it advisable to move sda3 between the shrunk sda2 and the new, empty space right of it so that the extended partition will be the last one?

That is:

sda1 - sda2 - empty space - sda3
or
sda1 - sda2 - sda3 - empty space

serafean

Hi,

my partitions are all mixed up, but all still have the correct label (sdaX) eg : sda1 - sda2 -sda4 - sda3 and it works normally. From what I understand, the place of the partition on the disk doesn't determine its number, the order of creation does. You can have just one primary partition that is the extended container, and that full of extended partitions; this to say that the extended doesn't have to be last.

Ususal safety rules still apply : backup all data (at least critical) and keep a LiveCD with disk recovery tools...

Serafean

ajlewis2

Yes, sda4 will be created and sda3 will remain where it is. Partition numbers get mixed up and create havoc when you delete a partition, though. I have some early bad experience doing that. :-)

Olaus

So, what happened that time? Just curious to know, so that I don't repeat the same mistake :-)

ajlewis2

Yours got out of order, but what I mean is that the numbers actually change if you delete. For example, let's say you have sda1 primary and sda2 extended with sda5, sda6, sda7 as logical. Then you decided to delete sda6. Bad news is that sda7 becomes sda6 and anything pointing to sda7 no longer points there. That's what I mean by messed up. The partition number of sda7 actually changes. It will still be in the same location block-wise, but the number will change. And if you make a new partition using the space that you emptied when you deleted sda6, it will now be partition number 7.

I would not consider what you have with them not being in order according to the block numbers as being a mistake.

serafean

This partition numbering havoc can be worked around by mounting partitions either by label or UUID (for instance my /home is mounted with /dev/disk/by-uuid/b185af67-10e1-4420-b5cd-6a2d6035fe87 in fstab). just my $0.02

you get the uuid of your partition by running "blkid" in a terminal while its mounted

Serafean