On Nov 10, 2012, at 2:09 PM, Charles Blair wrote:

You only get 4 primary partitions.  If you want any Logical  
partitions, you have to have to make one of the primary partitions an  
Extended partition, and put your Logical partitions inside that  
Extended partition.

So, in effect, your three Primary NTFS partitions have used up all the  
primary partitions you can have if you want to use Logical partitions.

As I see it, you have two options:

1) Make your Linux partition an "everything" partition (root, boot,  
usr, var, home, and so on...), in Primary slot #4.

2) Backup one of your NTFS partitions (say, #3); put your Linux Root  
in the now-free Primary partition (#3) resized as necessary; move the  
remaining two NTFS Primary partitions around (if necessary) so you can  
consolidate all your free-space into one Extended partition (#4); then  
create a Logical partition (#5), inside the Extended (free-space)  
partition, to hold the backed-up contents of the old #3; and one or  
more Logical partitions (#6, #7, #8) to hold the rest of your Linux  
stuff.

Or... You could leave your old Windows disk alone, buy a new disk and  
put Linux on it.  Then you can switch between booting Linux and  
Windows by using the boot disk chooser of the BIOS.  There was a  
recent thread in Debian-Users on this topic -- I recommend you read it  
before you start.

For more on the topic of Logical/Extended/Primary partitions, see  
WikiPedia at

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning
     or
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

and the man page for "fdisk" (it may be called "fdisk.distrib" if you  
have gnu-fdisk installed) which is available on the web at (among  
other places) http://linux.die.net/man/8/fdisk .

Enjoy!

Rick

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