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Unallocated hard disk space now unusable!!!320 GB SATA

I use slackware 12, i have a 320 GB SATA HDD.
i have the following partition table

Quote:

cfdisk 2.12r

Disk Drive: /dev/sda
Size: 320072933376 bytes, 320.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 38913

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unusable 1.05 *
sda1 Primary Linux ext3 10737.42 *
sda2 Boot Primary NTFS [^B] 21474.84 *
sda5 Logical Linux ext3 10240.48 *
sda6 Logical Linux ext3 5116.13 *
sda7 Logical Linux swap 2048.10 *
sda4 Primary NTFS [^L] 107373.71 *
Unusable 163078.63 *

[ Help ] [ Print ] [ Quit ] [ Units ] [ Write ]

IN FDISK IT SHOWS

Quote:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1306 10485760 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 1306 3917 20971520 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 3917 6033 16996770 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 6033 19087 104857130+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 3917 5162 10000431 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 5162 5784 4996183+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 5784 6033 2000061 82 Linux swap

I am confused about the

Quote:

Unusable 163078.63 *

part
Why is it unusable?
How am i supposed to set this right?
The last thing i want to do is format the whole HDD.
Please help me out
when i try to create a new partition in fdisk it gives the following

Quote:

Command (m for help): n
No free sectors available

Quote:

/dev/sda3 3917 6033 16996770 5 Extended

Your extended partition ends at 6033 so even though you have unallocated space you can not create additional partitions.
And of course you can not add any additional primary partitions since you already have created 4.

You need to resize the extended partition to include the remaining unallocated space. BTW your limited to 15 partitions
on a SATA drive since they use SCSI subsystem drivers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by riodeuno (Post 2869512)

First of all, all partitons starts on same cylinder with the previous one end cylinder. It should be

Code:

/dev/sda1      1 1306 10485760 83 Linux

/dev/sda2 * 1307 3917 20971520 7  HPFS/NTFS

Second, you have 3 primary partitions (sda1, sda2, sda4) and 1 extended partition (sda3), in witch you have 3 logical partitions (sda5, sda6, sda7). So you can't add a new primary partition. But your extended partiton ends on cylinder 6033. All space was allocated for sda5, sda6, sda7. And sda4 ends on cylinder 19087. So from 19088 to 38913 cylinder you can't make another partitions.

So you must to run again fdisk and set a correct partition table. The extended partition must end on cylinder 38913. Only in that way you will can add more logical partitions: sda8, sda7 so on.

Thanks a lot Michealk, Road map
I finally know what the issue is, so i will try reading the fdisk manual to figure out how to fix this.

fdisk can only delete/create. However, gparted is a linux app similar to Partition Magic, you can run from a live CD.

Before the Extended can be "grown", sda4 is going to have to move - to the end of the disk would be sensible. Doesn't look like it is the Windoze boot partition so you should be o.k.
Maybe.

As suggested above, use the gparted liveCD.

Thanks again for helping me with this,
I only had to delete sda4 and merge the whole freed disk space with the unallocated space, and make one large chunk of freed disk space with i could format easily.