User's Manual

110 Appendix E:An Introduction to Disk Partitions
Figure E–9 Disk Drive With an Unused Partition
If you find yourself in this situation, you can use the space allocated to the unused partition. You will
first need to delete the partition, and then create the appropriate Linux partition(s) in its place. You
can either delete the partition using the DOS fdisk command, or you will be given the opportunity
to do so during a custom installation.
Using Free Space from an Active Partition
This is the most common situation. It is also, unfortunately, the hardest to handle. The main problem
is that, even if you have enough free space, it is presently allocated to a partition that is already in use.
If you purchased a computer with pre-installed software, the hard disk most likely has one massive
partition holding the operating system and data.
Aside from adding a new hard drive to your system, you have two choices:
Destructive Repartitioning
Basically, you delete the single large partition and create several smaller ones. As you might
imagine, any data you had in the original partition is destroyed. This means that making a com-
plete backup is necessary. For your own sake, make two backups, use verification (if available
in your backup software), and try to read data from your backup before you delete the partition.