Insufficient Disk Space on the Extended Partition

Support knowledgebase (tsaupe_partition)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 8.0

Symptom

Your hard disk already contains 3 primary partitions and one extendend partition immediately after them.
(The article Partitioning for SuSE Linux provides you with instructions on how to check your partitions. For more information on this subject, refer to the partitioning chapter in the User Guide.)

You are certain that there is still unpartitioned space available at the end of your hard disk and you want to use this space for Linux. However, according to the installation with YaST, it is not possible to create any logical partition because there is not enough free space either for a primary or a logical partition.

Cause

The extended partition created with the partitioning program is only big enough to host the logical partitions included in it.

Solution

You have several possibilities to create additional logical partitions in the extended partition:

1. Deleting the extended partition:

This approach requires manual partitioning during the installation. For a detailed description refer to: Manual Partitioning with YaST2

If there is no extended partition available, YaST will create it during the installation optimizing the amount available of usable disk space. For this purpose, the extended partition must be located at the end of the partition, i.e., there cannot be any free space between primary partitions.
Please note that deleting the extended partition implies losing all the logical partitions' data.

2. Resizing the logical partitions in the extended partition:

The manual partitioning mode enables you to reduce existing partitions. Thus, you can create a new partition for Linux on the disk space now available and install your Linux system in this partition.
After having installed the system, you can use the tool cfdisk to enlarge the extended partition by creating new logical partitions. In this way, the available disk space can be exploited to a full extent.

To do this, login as root user and enter the following command in a text console:

	cfdisk /dev/hdX
for IDE systems,
	cfdisk /dev/scX
for SCSI systems, replacing X with the letter of the hard disk that contains the extended partition. For example, for the master on an IDE system's first IDE controller:
	cfdisk /dev/hda

The output of cfdisk shows the partition table. At the bottom of the table, the free disk space is displayed under Free Space. Use the cursor keys to move the bar to Free Space and then [ New ] to create a new partition.
Finally, write the changed partition table to the hard disk with [ Write ] and restart the system.


Keywords: PARTITION, SPACE, HARD DISK, CFDISK

Categories: Booting/Installation

SDB-tsaupe_partition, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 09. Apr 2003
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 09. Apr 2003 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)