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Old 08-03-2013, 04:54 AM   #1
postmanpat65
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Cool creating extended partitions on my hard drive for linux installations.


Good morning everyone, welcome to sunny east anglia. This is my problem, will be grateful for any help. My hard drive size is 931.5 GB, it is at the moment divided into the following partitions: 101 mb unallocated. System reserved 100 mb ntfs primary partition. C. 778GB ntfs boot, page file crash dump, primary partition. 71.35 GB unallocated. 78 GB active Primary partition with Manjaro installed on it. 3.9 GB primary partition swap. Obviously I have windows 7 installed on C. Now for the difficult part. As I have so much space available I would like to install another Linux distro but to do this I am told this can only be installed on an extended partition. How do I convert (?) my 71.35 GB unallocated to a extended partition or if this is not possible, how do I create an extended partition on my present set-up.

Hope this is not too much to ask on my first visit, thanks to you all for helping a new linux user.
 
Old 08-03-2013, 05:02 AM   #2
Firerat
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boot into Manjaro, open up a terminal and

Code:
/sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sda
post the output
[code]
inside code tags
like this example
[/code]
 
Old 08-03-2013, 05:02 AM   #3
syg00
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From Manjaro, do this (as root/sudo) and post the results - use [code] tags so we can read it
Code:
parted /dev/sda "print free"
 
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Old 08-03-2013, 05:06 AM   #4
Firerat
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^^^

parted is better than the fdisk I gave
 
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Old 08-03-2013, 01:15 PM   #5
postmanpat65
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parted /dev/sda "print free"

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
32.3kB 106MB 106MB Free Space
1 106MB 211MB 105MB primary ntfs
2 211MB 836GB 835GB primary ntfs
836GB 912GB 76.6GB Free Space
3 912GB 996GB 83.8GB primary ext4 boot
4 996GB 1000GB 4223MB primary linux-swap(v1)
1000GB 1000GB 745kB Free Space
 
Old 08-03-2013, 03:28 PM   #6
Firerat
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because you are using MBR partitions you are limited to 4 partitions, which you already have defined.

There is a "workaround" and that is the extended partition, which is a partition which can then contain logical partitions.

as a "quick fix" you could delete the swap partition, and then add the "76.6GB Free Space" as an extended partition
Which would then allow you to add further logical partitions ( within that extended partition ).
You would then need to modify Manjaro's /etc/fstab so it uses the new swap partition.

The downside to this is you will loose that swap space ( it will sit at the end of the disk, wasted ).
That is unless you use something like gparted ( on a liveCD or new distro ) to resize Your Manjaro partition ( so it uses the free space at the end of the disk )

I'll be honest here in that I'm not 100% certain that will even work, I've only ever had the extended partition as the 'last' primary.
e.g.
1-p 2-p 3-e
or
1-p 2-p 3-p 4-e
and never
1-p 2-p 3-e 4-p
But I don't see why it wouldn't work.


Ideally you should delete both
3 912GB 996GB 83.8GB primary ext4 boot
4 996GB 1000GB 4223MB primary linux-swap(v1)

Then create extended partition ( using all free space ) , and go on to add logical partitions for Manjaro and your new distro.

Obviously that is more work, as you would have to re-install Manjaro, restoring backup data and configuration.

Before you do anything, backup your important data and settings, etc.




Another option, is convert to gpt
GPT does not have this "4 partition limit"
Trouble is you are going to have a little fight on your hands to achieve that without messing up your windows7 installation, apparently it is "doable" but I think it would be more trouble than it is worth in your case.
 
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Old 08-03-2013, 06:25 PM   #7
postmanpat65
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Firerat, so what you are proposing is that I delete my last 2 partitions, resize them to include the 76.6 gb of free space and then convert all the free space to an extended partition. Have I got that right. When this has been done, re-install Manjaro on the new extended partition so that I can install other o/s on the extended partition. Sounds exciting, thank you!! Please reply if I have got things right. Many thanks for all your help. (restore mbr for windows obviously?)
 
Old 08-03-2013, 08:11 PM   #8
syg00
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If you choose to do that and delete the Linux partitions, the free space will amalgamate to one contiguous block. Create an extended partition to use it all.
Install Linux(s) as required. No need to worry about the mbr - Linux install will re-write grub/lilo there for you, and you will then be able to access Windows as currently. With multiple Linux install you need to be aware of which one is currently in control of the mbr.
 
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Old 08-04-2013, 03:27 PM   #9
postmanpat65
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Thank you sygOO for your help. By my calculations I will then have about 165 gb to play with, could I run , sorry install say 3 Linux distros on that amount of space? Thank you very much.
 
Old 08-04-2013, 04:03 PM   #10
EDDY1
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How much free space in windows partition 835Gig is quite large unless you have a lot of data on it.
I would keep sda1, resize sda2, delete sda3 & sda4.
If you want to resize windows, wins disk utilities only resize upto half the os size, so if you want wins shrunk to less than half it's size you will have to use something like gparted-live-cd/usb.
 
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Old 08-04-2013, 04:27 PM   #11
yancek
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Quote:
By my calculations I will then have about 165 gb to play with, could I run , sorry install say 3 Linux distros on that
Should be no problem to do that. I had 14 Linux distributions on a 120GB drive. Basic installations, no problems. If you are putting a lot of new software and data on the partitions that will obviously make a difference in time.
 
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