Re: [LI] Partitioning : No free primary

[Babu Kalakrishnan <kalakrishnan@xxxxxxxx>]

Rohit,

Rohit typed:
> This I came across last night..
> I have a Samsung HDD 8.4 GB, 1027 Cyl.
> Wished to have NT + Linux on my hdd.
> The problem is that after allocating less than half of HDD to NT, it 
> has become impossible to allocate the rest to Linux.

<rest of the message snipped>

I think your problem must be that you created an Extended partition that
was only 2.5GB and allocated it fully to NT (as drive D:)

The hard disk can have only 4 primary partition -One of these is for your
NT Primary, The second your NT extended. Which leaves only space for only
2 more partitions.. (That's why the message "No free primary")

The proper way to do this would be :

Create your primary partition (of 600 MB or whatsoever), Install NT. Leave
the rest of the hard disk free.

Install Linux. Ask disk druid to create a small partition (16MB will do) 
for /boot (Linux Native) as primary (Important - since otherwise you will 
not be able to boot from it unless you install LILO in the MBR), and the 
/swap (<128MB - Linux Swap) and "/" (of required size - type Linux Native)
partitions as extended. 

If Disk Druid permits it, create the remaining partitions for NT also as
extended (hda5 upwards).I can't vouch for it since I've never used Disk 
druid - I normally partition my drives using cfdisk on a system that 
already has Linux installed :-) cfdisk is much more friendly !! 

After the installation of Linux is complete, boot into NT & format the 
NT drives as either FAT or NTFS as desired.

If Disk Druid doesn't allow you to create the NT drives, you can always ask
the friendly cfdisk to do the job for you (after booting into Linux)

And remember to ask the Linux installer to format your Linux native 
partitions. Or else you'll find the installer bombing with messages like
"I can't find 260MB space for installing".. etc (There was a thread on 
the list a few days ago regarding this, and I suspect not formatting the
partition might have been the cause)

Kala

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Linux India Mailing List Archives are now available.  Please search
the archive at http://lists.linux-india.org/ before posting your question
to avoid repetition and save bandwidth.