Hi, i have a dual boot machine with 6 GB hard drive, running Win2k & Red Hat Linux 7.3 . The partitions for both os were done in the following order:- 1.Win2k – Created 1st partition as Primary DOS partition, 2GB, using DOS Fdisk. 2.Install Win2k in 1st partition. 3.Linux – Created partitions using Linux Fdisk:- /dev/hda2 = /swap = 258Mb /dev/hda3 = /boot = 22Mb /dev/hda2 = /root = the rest of free space in 1st Sector on hard drive 4.Initially i planned to have separate partitions for /home, /usr, /tmp & /var. But when doing Linux Fdisk partitioning, i was only allowed up to 4 partitions on sector 1. < The prompt read ‘Partition(1-4)’ > After Linux installation, i found these directories exist: /home, /usr, /var, /tmp But then all these are only directories under /root, not in their own separate partitions. There are still lots of free hard disk space. How is it possible to add more Linux partitions without affecting the Win2k partition ? Appreciate any advice. Many thx.

The 4th partition needs to be an extended/logical partition. After that you can create plenty other partitions. Give it the size of your entire "spare" harddisk. Just see it as a somekind of "virtual" partition, in which you can create the remaining partitions.

Sorry i made a typo. The 4th partition is the /root. 2nd partition is /swap & 3rd partition is /boot. If the 4th partition were to be made extended partition, then does it mean that i need to delete the /root partition first ? Are there other ways that doesn’t need deleting the /root partition, so i won’t have to reinstall Linux ? Thx.

You can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions. It doesn't matter which one is extended but it's the only workaround to create logical partitions. What I suppose you could do if you don't want to lose any data is to turn off your swap, delete the swap partition, resize / (hda4, don't think "fdisk" will do that but "parted" will), create and extended partition and then recreate your swap along with any others...remembering to reactivate your swap and edit /etc/fstab to reflect the changes. NB logical parititions start at /dev/hda5 NNB Always back up any important data before messing around with yourr partition table, especially when resizing.

Hi, Take cfdisk tool and after 4 primery partition you take extendet partition. You gona have /dev/hda5, /dev/hda6 ...... Dont forget to take real size 1 GB 1024 MB not 1000 MB ok :) Block size :) # cfdisk /dev/hda Sorry for bad English :)

Hi 3DWave, Thx for ur response. >>turn off your swap, delete the swap partition, resize / (hda4, don't think "fdisk" will do that but "parted" will)<< May i know what does 'parted' mean? btw, can cfdisk do the above job well, without affecting the Win2k partition ? Thx.

"parted" is just another partitioning program like fdisk, cfdisk, partition magic etc....for more info: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/