System: Dell 400SC.
Disk: Seagate 300GB ATA (ST3300831A), using onboard IDE.

I just installed the new disk and allocated 100GB NTFS in Windows XP Pro,
Computer Management shows this in XP:
jiki.pbase.com/u26/taochen/upload/43368325.disks.jpg
(newbie not allowed to post URL)

Boot into Ubuntu with Live CD 5.04, I want to create a Linux partition for the rest 200GB free space, however, fdisk sees the disk is fully used:

======== screen log ========

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 36481 293033601 42 SFS

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
No free sectors available

======== end of screen log ========

Is this a kown issue or do I miss anything?

I want to do a 'dd' backup of the other disk to the new partition.
Don't have Linux installed on this system and don't plan to.
If this is a kown issue, do you know any _live_ CD may have a working fdisk?

I burned a Knoppix CD with the lastest version, but the box doesn't recognize it's a bootable CD, guess I need to reburn with another CDR.

Thanks in advance.

Tao

Hi,

I know, but that was exactly my question :-)

If you look at the Windows XP output,
http://jiki.pbase.com/u26/taochen/up...8325.disks.jpg

I only allocated 100GB in Windows, why fdisk thinks all 300GB are allocated ?

Thanks,

Tao

SFS means secure filesystem... there's something doinked up with the partition table I suspect. You might want to use Windows to format off that other 200Gb for fat32 since it can actually see the partition difference, then when it writes the table again it might let fdisk be able to see what's actually there.

Cheers,

Finegan

Finegan,

Sorry I didn't see your reply until now. That's a good idea, I'll try and post the result.

Thanks,
Tao

I created a second partition on the 300GB disk (NTFS) in Windows XP, but fisk still sees the whole disk as one SFS partition (tried both Ubuntu and SuSE Live CDs).

I deleted the partition in fdisk, create a 100GB partition at the end of the disk, boot into Windows XP. XP sees the layout correctly.
I then created a NTFS partition, booted into Linux again, now fdisk is happy.

I wonder if anyone else sees this scenario.

Tao

Not that I could see when I was googling about. I was actually gonna suggest that, but that was running fast and loose with the possibility of blasting your partition table, I mean still long odds, just nothing I wanted to take the chance of getting flamed over. Glad it finally nailed out though, keen!

Did you use something nonstandard to create the part on the first run? Or was that just how WinXP carved it out?

Cheers,

Finegan

I didn't do anything special.
Always used "Control-Panel" -> "Computer Management" -> "Storage" -> "Disk Management" -> right click and choose new partition.

Tao