Primary Partitions with fdisk

[Comrade]

Here is my , so that you can help me better.

I'm trying to use fdisk, but it's not creating the final partition for some reason.

I deleted the last three partitions (/dev/hda3, /dev/hda4, /dev/hda5). I then proceeded to create new partitions, but it stopped me after the fourth primary partition was made. I already have two primary partitions from my Windows installation.

So I tried to make an extended, but then it tells me to delete a partition before I can make an extended one. When I deleted the swap partition, however, it only let the extended partition be 512MB. I don't know why this is, but when I tried to make it larger, it says "value out of range".

I got the boot partition listed correctly, and the swap partition, but the ROOT partition is not working right. The handbook tells me to hit enter twice, but this results in a very small partition. I did 'v', and it says that there are a lot of sectors left (like 50 million or something). I want to use them up in the root partition, but it's not working - I already have 4 primary partitions. There is no way that I'm deleting any Windows partitions.

Help! I am very confused

[jaboua]

Have you tried using cfdisk or fdisk from a terminal instead of the GUI? "fdisk" has never let me down...

[budman7]

4 is the maximum number of primary partitions that you can have per hard drive.

1 of the 4 can be an extended and can hold many logical partitions.

[Comrade]

Sorry, I was not clear.

I want to have five partitions. My 2 Windows partitions, and then 3 Linux ones.

A swap partition, a boot partition, and a root partition.

Basically, since they all can't be primary, what am I supposed to do? I tried to make the root extended, but then it won't let me, saying I have to delete one of the other four partitions. When I delete one of those partitions, the root partition ends up being only as large as the boot partition, max.

[budman7]

The /root won't be the extended.
The extended partition is just a container for the logical partitions.
/root
/boot
/swap

If you use cfdisk instead of fdisk, I think it will be easier for you to see the partitions as they are created.
Just type "cfdisk" where you normally type "fdisk"