Re: partition alignment problem

Sorry; I've done more research and what I'm trying to do doesn't make 
sense.  I can't make a logical partition unless it is in an extended 
partition, and there are already 4 primary partitions so I can't make 
another primary.  So, more surgery is required (I plan to move the fat32 
to the end, create another fat32 primary partition also at the end, and 
re-install linux with 1 primary boot partition and 1 extended for 
everything else).

My ignorance aside, it might be better if Parted said something when 
users try to do something stupid; but of course, this is not commercial 
software so I understand how idiot-proofing may not be the first priority.

Cheers,
Aseem

Aseem Agarwala wrote:
> Hello.  I am running a dual boot RedHat 7.3 and Win XP Dell inspiron 
> 4000.  My kernel is 2.4.18-4.
>
> I tried to use Parted 1.6.3 to transfer space from Linux to Windows 
> (sorry).  I used boot disks and successfully shrunk the ext3 partition 
> by about 5 GB.  This left 5 GB unallocated at the end of my hard drive. 
>  Unfortunately, I cannot turn these 5 GB into a FAT32 partition.  I show 
> below the output of print, and the error when I try to run mkpartfs.
>
> Partition Magic 7 is also unwilling to touch this unallocated space. Any 
> tips on how I can get this space to work in windows?
>
> Thanks,
> Aseem
>
> -----------
> Using /dev/hda
> Information: The operating system thinks the geometry on /dev/hda is
> 2432/255/63.  Therefore, cylinder 1024 ends at 8032.499M.
> (parted) print
> Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-19077.187 megabytes
> Disk label type: msdos
> Minor    Start       End     Type      Filesystem  Flags
> 2          0.031     23.532  primary   ext3
> 3         23.533    141.196  extended
> 5         23.563    141.196  logical   linux-swap
> 1        141.196   7146.101  primary   fat32       boot, lba
> 4       7146.101  14001.965  primary   ext3
>
> (parted) mkpartfs logical fat32 14001.966 19077.187
> Warning: Unable to align partition properly.  This probably means that 
> another partitioning tool generated an incorrect partition table, 
> because it didn't have the correct BIOS geometry.  It is safe to 
> ignore,but ignoring may cause (fixable) problems with some boot loaders.
> Ignore/Cancel? I
> Error: Unable to satisfy all constraints on the partition.
>
>
>
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--
Aseem Agarwala
http://agarwala.org