[Tfug] gparted problem

[earljviolet at deserthowler.com]

Hi, Don,

On Tue, December 22, 2009 12:06 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:
> Hi Earl,
>
>> >> I have a hard drive that I used for testing some distributions. 
>> >> As some distros have some very strong ideas about partitioning
>> >> the final partitioning looks like this:
>> >>
>> >> | sda1   |  sda5         | sda2            |  sda3   |
>> >> | boot   |  Ubuntu 9.10  | Ubuntu 8.02     |  Swap   |
>> >
>> > Is this *physically* how the partitions are laid out?
>> > I.e., are you sure that the first sector of sda2 is
>> > "physically" adjacent to the last sector in sda5
>>
>> Shorter answer ... Yes.
>>
>> Long answer ... Yes, because:
>> sda1 sectors 63-417869
>
> sda1 ends *inside* sda4/5??
typo  :(

>> sda4 sectors 417690-39070079
>> sda5 sectors 417753-39070079
>
> why does sda4 encompass sda5?
sda4 is extended and sda5 is logical in the extended
>> unallocated sectors 39070080-73882934
>
> These are (were) sda2?
At one time, yes.
>
>> sda3 sectors 73882435-73882934
>>
>> >> Of course, sda5 is in sda4.
>
> Why "of course"?  (recall, I don't run any of your distros  :-/ )
This is kind of a X86 thing I guess.  It's the same in Windows but the
notation is different.  Only will recognize 4 primary partitions or 3
primary and an extended which is can have a bunch of partitions.

>> >> I cleared sda2 which is now unallocated.  I tried to
>> >> expand sda5 into the space formerally occupied by sda2.
>> >> gparted is unable to do this.  Does
>> >> anyone know if this is because sda5 is a logical partition
>> >> and sda2 was a primary partition?
>
> Ah, because sda4 constrains sda5 (?)

Yes.  But with the most recent gparted I was able to expand sda4 into the
empty space and then expand sda5 to fill it.  I think it was Mandriva that
insisted on making the extended partition.

I now have sda1 (boot), sda4 (extended), sda5 (9.10), and sda3 (swap).  It
works just fine.

Earl