No free space after partition resize with parted cmd?

[Ian Vaughan]

Howdy,
I have "successfully" resized a root (primary) partition on a RHAS 2.1 server using a knoppix cd and the parted command. The partition was 120GB and is now about 20GB. The box boots ok but I can't see the 100GB or so of free space, with either parted print or sfdisk -l , that should have been left when the partition was shrunk down. The partition was at the end of the disk - parted still reports total disksize as 138919.218 MB which is correct.

There are 3 primary partitions of type ext3 and one extended partition which contains 4 logicals.
parted was ver 1.6.4 from knoppix v3.6
partition was 18300.234 to 136919.218MB
is now 18300.234 to 38300.796MB

Unfortunately I have no web access from server in question - & am in hotel room now :-(
I have googled extensively and have not found this specific problem
Could I manually tell the partition table that this is free space using one of the fdisk variants?
Any help mucho appreciated
Many thanks
Ian

[Stuart Browne]

What's the output of the 'sfdisk -l ' command?

[Ian Vaughan]

Hi Stuart,
Will try and get a printout - bit of a struggle as it has no network access (groan).

I suspect that it might be because I already have 3 primary and 1 extended partition on this disk and I just can't make any more?
I can sacrifice the extended as it only has 4x2GB swap partitions in it (not my design). Then hopefuly create a new extended on the end of the disk.

Will report back...
cheers
Ian

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

If there is unpartitioned space, then yea.

Destroy the two logical swaps, and the extended, and re-make the extended (assuming it's all blocked together).

Unfortunately, you can only have 4 primary partitions (3 + extended = 4). Unf.

[Ian Vaughan]

Phew,
used newer version of sfdisk from knoppix cd and space on end of disk showed up as unusable.
Deleted the logical partitions & remade extended part tition on the end of the disk using cfdisk.
Worked a treat - but didn't put the "l" option into my cpio when I copied the contents
( find . -print | cpio -pudlmv /destination )
so it hasn't made some of the links.

Will redo the cpio & hopefully that will be it.
Ta
Ian