Trying to create a partition help
 

I am very new to this so please forgive my newbieness

I am trying to make a partition using fdisk command. Ok here is what I have done so far.

[root@shuttle ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 203 102280+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 204 158816 79940952 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034124288 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2 14593 117210240 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 2 14593 117210208+ b W95 FAT32

I want to create a partition on my primary hard disk which I beleive is /dev/hda

Then I did this command fdisk /dev/hda and got this output

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 158816.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Am I doing something wrong.

Please help. Thanks

you havent actually done anything yet....

this is just a warning that some old software cant handle such hige disks..
but i assume you are using a fairly recent linux kernel and lilo / grub boot manager right ?

Yes Im using grub boot loader with the upto date kernel

When I get to this stage I press m for help and get these options

Command (m for help): m
Command action
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit bsd disklabel
c toggle the dos compatibility flag
d delete a partition
l list known partition types
m print this menu
n add a new partition
o create a new empty DOS partition table
p print the partition table
q quit without saving changes
s create a new empty Sun disklabel
t change a partition's system id
u change display/entry units
v verify the partition table
w write table to disk and exit
x extra functionality (experts only)

Command (m for help):

So I press n to add new partition and get this

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)

Can you help me please.

its asking if you want to create a new primary partiton, or a new extended partiton...

read "man fdisk" or use a more "newbie friendly" partiton tool like cfdisk, or qtparted.

basically, you can only have 4 primary partitons, if you require anu more you should have 3 primary partitons, and make the rest extended partitons.