Make primary partition from unallocated space from extended partition

Question

I have first installed Windows XP (/dev/sda1), after which I installed Ubuntu (/dev/sda2). Now I would like to install Windows 7 as well. But, there's no unallocated space left on my hard drive, AND my Win XP partition is quasi-full. So I resized my Ubuntu partition (which is a logical partition inside an extended partition). Now that I cleared some space, I wanted to create a primary partition for Windows 7, but gparted nor kde partition manager will let me create another primary partition. They only allow me to make new logical ones inside my extended partition.

Is there any way to fix this and allow me to make another primary partition with the unallocated space I created?

Answer 1

In general, you have two type of partitions on a bare drive, Primary and Extended.

Logical drives can be made in the Extended partition, but you can't make a primary partition inside an extended partition (nor vise versa).

So shrink the extended partition down to be just big enough to hold the logical drive(s) inside it, then make a new primary partition in the space that the Extended partition was taking up.

Keep in mind that Windows can't/won't handle a disk with more than 4 primary partitions properly.

Answer 2

I've found the problem: The unallocated space in the extended partition was located between the Linux partition and the Linux Swap partition. Therefore the extended partition could not be simply resized: I had to first move the unallocated space to the "edge" of the extended partition, so it could easily excluded from the extended partition. You cannot split a partition in two pieces with a third partition in between.