Formating free space: WinXP pro and RH9 dualboot with free space on 3rd drive

Vermicious · 03-21-2004, 05:16 PM

I am currently running a dual boot system of Windows XP Pro on 1st drive, RedHat 9 on a 2nd drive and a 3rd drive set as a storage device. My problem is the 3rd drive is a 200G drive and my MOBO doesn't support it the entire drive. It only sees about 137G, which I have formatted as FAT32.

I want to use the remaining 60G or so as part of my Linux system so that it would expand my current 40G on drive 2 to include the additional 60G.
fdisk reports:

Quote:

[root@localhost root]# fdisk -l /dev/hdc

Disk /dev/hdc: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 2 16709 134207010 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc5 2 16709 134206978+ b Win95 FAT32

How can I format the free space and use it for good(linux) ?

Thanks for the help.

AutOPSY · 03-21-2004, 05:29 PM

you will need to use 'fdisk /dev/hdc ' create a linux (ext2/ext3) partition,
primary partition, number 2. Surely it will ask how you want it partitioned, usually in cylinder format, tell it start: 16710 and end will be a default number, probably somehwre around the
24321 or 24320 area. then format the unused space with 'mke2fs' from Linux.
like so: /sbin/mke2fs /dev/hdc2 cause you told linux to create a primary partition with the partiton number being 2. this should also appear as 83/82 in the partition ID area depending on if its Linux ext2/3 or Linux swap.

Vermicious · 03-22-2004, 06:10 AM

It worked. Thanks. Here is how it read:

Quote:

[root@localhost root]# cd /
[root@localhost /]# fdisk /dev/hdc

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 24321.
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)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdc: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 2 16709 134207010 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 16710 24321 61143390 83 Linux
/dev/hdc5 2 16709 134206978+ b Win95 FAT32

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
[root@localhost /]# /sbin/mke2fs /dev/hdc2
mke2fs 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
7651328 inodes, 15285847 blocks
764292 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
467 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@localhost /]#

So how will this space be used now? Will it be part of the "general drive" or is it allocated to a specific file? And if so how do I access it?