RedHat 73: Could not allocate requested partions. Partitioning Failed.

[JustinSampson]

Hello,
I'm trying to install RedHat 7.3. I already have XP installed on the disk and would like to dual boot with RedHat.

I have a 40gig HD with one 4gig partion and one 34gig one. I'm trying to install linux on the 34 gig one (it has XP on it) and let it creat it's own partitions.

In the setup when I get to the partion setup, I click "automatic" but I get this error:

Could not allocate requested partions. Partitioning Failed. Could not allocate partitions or primary partitions.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Justin Sampson

 

[n0cmonkey]

Did you delete the current 34GB partition? You probably need to.

 

[JustinSampson]

No, I didn't delete it. I thught you could just let RedHat create partitions with the free space? I thought that's what I did when I installed Suse a while ago.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JustinSampson
No, I didn't delete it. I thught you could just let RedHat create partitions with the free space? I thought that's what I did when I installed Suse a while ago.

You didnt mention free space, you mentioned 2 partitions. Delete a partition to make free space.

 

[JustinSampson]

I think were confusing each other here. What ment by "free space" was unused space on the 34gig partition. XP is only using a few gigs of that, and I though RedHat could resize that one and use the space for itself.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JustinSampson
I think were confusing each other here. What ment by "free space" was unused space on the 34gig partition. XP is only using a few gigs of that, and I though RedHat could resize that one and use the space for itself.

Not that Im aware of. Partition magic should be able to do it for you though.

 

[Nothinman]

'free space' in the partioning context usually means unpartitioned, not inside a partition but unused.

Partition Magic will do what you need, if you used FAT I believe a free util called fips will do that. Either way read the docs and have a good backup first, just incase.

 

[DimZiE]

resize your XP Partition leave about 5 gigs for linux...
create an extended partition on that 5 gigs
boot from the linux CD
and at the partitioning option dialog choose "edit partition manually" or something like that..
create a root = / partition you might want to set it up to 2-4 G depending on the packages you're going to install
create a swap = /swap partition which should about 2,5x of your physical memory

note: if your 4 GB is a logical partition inside an Extended partition you should resize the Extended partition to be able to allocate the linux partition(s) inside it.
note: all the linux partition should be logical partition otherwise you'll get the same error

size the auto partitioning would try to create /,/boot,/swap all as primary you wouldn't be able to use the auto partitioning option. since the maximum Primary partition on one HDD is four you can't allocate more than that..

e-mail me for more queries i'm not an expert but i'll try to help

 

[FUBAR]

You don't need to add an extended partition to install. There can be up to 4 primary partitions, and you'll probably get right up to that:

1. Your existing 4Gig
2. Whatever you leave for XP
3. Linux Root (/)
4. Linux Swap.

You can make one if you want, but it's (potentially) kind of confusuing that way because you'll have a /dev/hda3 that you can't "use" then hda5 will be your root.