Trouble partitioning for dual boot

[Chris Grk-O-Matic]

Could it be suggested since that Ext3 partition would be rendered useless, to shrink it down, and then use the empty space to add the new NTFS partition for Windows/Linux sharing?

I tried to do that, but then I couldn't add another partition because I already created 4 primary partitions.

Can anyone suggest a workaround for this?

[Chris Grk-O-Matic]

Can anyone chime in on this? It would be much appreciated.

[srs5694]

Could it be suggested since that Ext3 partition would be rendered useless, to shrink it down, and then use the empty space to add the new NTFS partition for Windows/Linux sharing?

I tried to do that, but then I couldn't add another partition because I already created 4 primary partitions.

The Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning system has a limit of four primary partitions. One of these may be an extended partition that serves as a placeholder for an arbitrary number of logical partitions. If you're bumping up against that limit you have two options:

• Convert one or more partitions from primary to logical. It's not generally easy to convert existing partitions, though; I don't believe GParted supports direct primary-to-logical conversions at all, for instance. It sounds like you're still laying out your partitions, though, so you should be able to start over.
• Switch from the MBR partitioning scheme to one that doesn't have this limit. The only practical choice on x86 or x86-64 systems is the GUID Partition Table (GPT) scheme. This is a good choice for a Linux-only system or a system that dual boots with OS X, FreeBSD, or some other GPT-friendly OS; however, Windows won't boot from a GPT disk unless the computer has EFI support in its firmware, and such support is still rare. There are workarounds for this limitation, but they're ugly and potentially dangerous.

Overall, your best bet is to delete all your partitions, create a primary partition for Windows (since it must boot from a primary partition), create an extended partition to cover the rest of the disk, and populate the extended partition with logical partitions for everything else. If I've misunderstood and you can't delete some or all of your partitions, you may need to delete just some of your existing partitions. As long as you keep it to three or fewer primaries, you're set.

[oldfred]

Post your partitions:

sudo fdisk -l