Re: cfdisk table: unusable space??
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 01:11:05PM +0100, J Horacio MG wrote
>
> Looking at the cfsdisk table, I've just seen this (just look at the last
> line of the table):
>
> hda1 Boot Primary Linux ext2 78.45
> hda2 Primary Linux ext2 78.45
> hda5 Logical Linux ext2 1498.25
> hda6 Logical Linux ext2 353.00
> hda7 Logical Linux ext2 596.17
> hda8 Logical Linux ext2 698.14
> hda9 Logical Linux ext2 1098.20
> hda10 Logical Linux ext2 1396.28
> hda11 Logical Linux ext2 1396.28
> hda12 Logical Linux ext2 376.53
> hda13 Logical Linux ext2 266.71
> hda3 Primary Linux Swap 196.11
> Unusable 172.58
>
> Unusable??? what does this mean?
>
It means you can't use it :)
This reflects the limitations of DOS partition talbes, used by
Linux/i386. The main partition table can have only four entries,
one (or more?) of which can be an "Extended Partition", a range
of tracks that can contain logical partitions.
You main partition table looks like this:
Name Type Tracks
hda1 Primary 1 - 10
hda2 Primary 11 - 20
hda4 Extended 21 - 999
hda3 Primary 1000 - 1024
hda5 - hda13 are logical partitions within hda4.
This leaves tracks 1025-1045 not in any partition, and all
four partition tables used. You cannot use it to make
another logical partition because the free space isn't
contiguous with your current extended partition.
You could swapoff /dev/hda3 and then delete it and re-create
it either as a larger partition (cylinders 1000 +) or as an
extended partition (in which case it and the space it uses
will be merged with /dev/hda4, freeing a partition table entry).
If you do make it an extended partition, its name will probably
change to /dev/hda14.
John P.
--
huiac@camtech.net.au
john@huiac.apana.org.au
"Oh - I - you know - my job is to fear everything." - Bill Gates in Denmark
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