Hard drive partition/structure question - cannot create anymore partitions!

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Batman

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#14240 22-Jun-2007 21:30

Hi all i have a Dell computer that came with a single 320g sata hd.

my partitions are as below:

EISA(??)49mb | XP OS Primary Partition (PP) 40g | Storage PP 80g | Vista PP 100g | unallocated 78g

now i've just realised this is hopeless as i now cannot do anything with the unallocated space! if i made my vista install as an extended partition i can do whatever i want to the unallocated space.

but now it tells me i cannot create an extended partition there now for some reason. also if i decide to do create a new partition i would lose dual booting due to basic disk becoming dynamic disk (???confused)

can i create an extended partition there using gparted?

AllNightNerding

411 posts

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#75718 23-Jun-2007 16:31

There are parition limits such as you can only have 3 primary partitions. however when you have an extended partition whcih you then make into lots of differant partitions that will use one primary partition.

What I would suggest doing is have XP on a Primary Partition
then Vista on another primary partition next to vista
then an extended partition for the rest of your data and then you can create more partitions off that.

This will most likely require you to re-install vista delete your files partition and then install vista then create the extended partition from there.

Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.

Batman

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#75723 23-Jun-2007 16:53

ahh ... silly of windows to install itself into a primary partition and left me hanging like this ... ok ok thanks!!