Jim, On Saturday 23 April 2005 16:54, Jim Flanagan wrote:
I'm trying to install Suse 9.3 as a second linux install. My current HD setup is as follows...
hda1 / hdb1 swap hdb2 home hdb3 usr hdb4 var
I tried installing 9.3 and resizing hdb4/var, but yast advises that I already have 4 primary partitions. How can I change things to do a second linux install, while keeping my ability to boot the existing install?
I have about 2.7GB free space on hda, lots of space in hdb, particularly home and var.
You've got a problem. You only get four primary partitions. If you want, more paritions, you have to created an extended partition table in one of the primary partition slots. From there you can created a relatively unlimited number of extended partitions. Linux (and Windows, for that matter) will cover up the distinction between primary and extended partitions. As it stands, you'll have to evacuate the contents of your hdb4 partition, use a partitioning tool to turn that partition's space plus the currently unused 2.7 GB into an extended partition and then add back the old hdb4's worth of space as the first extended partition and the remaining 2.7 GB as the second extended partition. Now what was hdb4 is hdb5 (hdb4 is not to be used--it's the extended partition table's slot in the primary partition table) and your new 2.7 GB partition will be hdb6. You can restore your old hdb4 data to hdb5 and make a new file system in hdb6.
Many thanks,
Good luck. I strongly recommend you look up some tutorial and reference material on partitioning for PC disks before you start manipulating your partitioning configuration.
-- Jim Flanagan
Randall SChulz