creating a more than 4 primary partitions

Question

i was moving my partitions here and there and i end up deleting my swap partition and currently i have 4 partitions and when i try to format ( note : the unallocated part ) some unallocated space gparted keeps saying :

 " If you want more partitions you should first create an extended partition. Such a partition can contain other partitions. Because an extended partition is also a primary partition it might be necessary to remove a primary partition first "

but even if i want to do that i can't move the other partitions to an extended partitions because they already contain some data .... any solution ??? help needed ...

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 11 '10 at 14:54

2

Back up your fourth partition and convert it into an extended partition.

answered Nov 11 '10 at 14:54

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

45,939
6
79
84

i don't have enough or additional storage on the machine and off the machine for back up .. , i mean is there an option just to change one of the 4 partitions to an extended partition ,and can you explain why i can't create additional primary partition ...@Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams thank you ...... – jspeshu Nov 11 '10 at 15:00
The MS-DOS partition table only has room for 4 partitions. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 11 '10 at 15:03
then how can i change the partition table to some other supporting table format srry if i botherd you @Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – jspeshu Nov 11 '10 at 15:06
You need to back up all the data on the disk and reformat it. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 11 '10 at 15:06

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 11 '10 at 15:04

2

The reason why you can only add four primary partitions has to do with the master boot record of the disk. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

answered Nov 11 '10 at 15:04

JonathanMueller

203
1
10

creating a more than 4 primary partitions

2 Answers2