How to change a primary partition into secondary in ubuntu 10.04

dins · 11-03-2010, 10:59 AM

hi, i'm a linux newbie and i made a mistake while installing windows and linux

I made 4 primary partitions for my HD as i didnt know that only maximum 4 primary partitions are allowed.
Now 25 GB of my HD is wasted. It is shown as unusable.

CAN ANYONE PLEASE TELL ME IF I CAN CONVERT MY WASTED 25GB INTO SECONDARY AND USE IT WITHOUT FORMATTING AND RE PARTITIONING MY ENTIRE HD ???

pljvaldez · 11-03-2010, 11:02 AM

The only thing you can do without destroying the 4th partition is add the empty space to that partition (or move some partitions to the end so you can add the space to another partition).

Otherwise, you have to delete the last partition (or copy it to another drive) and then create a logical partition containing the rest of the disk space. Then you can recreate the deleted partition inside the new logical partition.

module0000 · 11-03-2010, 11:03 AM

You don't have to reformat your entire HD.

You can remove the last primary partition and re-create it as an extended partition. This will allow you to make several more partitions to utilize the rest of your hard-drive.

Also, you may consider LVM, which is another approach to how you segregate the data in your hard disk.

fbobraga · 11-03-2010, 11:04 AM

you can use GParted (it's on the Ubuntu liveCD) to do it:

http://ubuntued.info/wp-content/uplo...lucid_lynx.jpg

dins · 11-04-2010, 01:25 AM

Guys this is my HD. the last partition i have linux installed. How can i add the unusable 25Gb ? plz help...

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 4093 32768000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 4093 33414 235520000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 33414 35845 19531250 83 Linux

pljvaldez · 11-04-2010, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dins

Guys this is my HD. the last partition i have linux installed. How can i add the unusable 25Gb ? plz help...

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 4093 32768000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 4093 33414 235520000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 33414 35845 19531250 83 Linux

As has been told above, you can do one of two things:
1) boot a LiveCD and use GParted to "grow" your linux partition at the end by the last 25GB.
2) copy the last partition (sda4) to another drive temporarily, delete sda4 and recreate it as an extended partition taking up the rest of the drive, then copy sda4 back.