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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Help with partitioning for a triple-boot



trot2millah
April 25th, 2009, 09:52 PM
I currently have 4 primary partitions under the partition table /dev/sda, and I am dual-booting Windows XP and Linux Mint 6. /dev/sda1 is ntfs and my Windows XP partition. /dev/sda2 is FAT32 and my D: drive backup hard drive partition. From there, I have /dev/sda3 which is my "/" partition for my Linux Mint install. The last one I have is /dev/sda4, which is an extended partition that contains swap, /tmp, /usr, /home and /var for Linux. This leaves me with 4 primary partitions, and I cannot create any more to go to a triple-boot setup with Jaunty. What are my options? Could I create a new partition table and be fine? Or is the only way for me to run Jaunty is by using Wubi, which I had before? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

trot2millah
April 26th, 2009, 01:08 AM
Bump, could really use some help as I cannot go forward until I find this out.

Feelin_froggy8877
April 26th, 2009, 01:17 AM
Pretty sure Wubi is your only option. Unless you wanna just repartition the whole hdd and add the 5th. Pretty sure If you try to add/repartition the hdd now it will be wiped clean.

trot2millah
April 26th, 2009, 01:33 AM
Alright I'm just going to go through Wubi. Thanks for the help.

tommcd
April 26th, 2009, 01:46 AM
The last one I have is /dev/sda4, which is an extended partition that contains swap, /tmp, /usr, /home and /var for Linux. This leaves me with 4 primary partitions, and I cannot create any more to go to a triple-boot setup with Jaunty.
An extended partition usually contains one or more logical partitions. For example, consider my fdisk -l:


bash-3.1# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x01680167
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2551 4080 12289725 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 4081 4207 1020127+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda4 4208 30401 210403305 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4208 5737 12289693+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 5738 7267 12289693+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 7268 30401 185823823+ 83 Linux
bash-3.1#

Note that /dev/sda4 is an extended partition that contains 3 logical partitions. Post your "sudo fdisk -l" here. If you have logical partitions inside your extended partition you should be able to repartition those. Try a Parted Magic live CD.

Feelin_froggy8877
April 26th, 2009, 04:58 PM
I was unaware you you repartition extended part's without affecting the primary.