How to fix "unusable disk space" error?

Question

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 for the first time in order to dual-boot it alongside Windows 7. I've freed up some space in my hard-drive, started the installation via USB and I'm having some problems in partitioning. So here's how the partition table looks:

/dev/sda1 NTFS 1GB Win 7 Loader
/dev/sda2 NTFS 200GB 
/dev/sda3 NTFS 200GB
freespace 100GB

I go ahead and try to create a swap drive for 4GB, it creates the drive successfully but the remaining 96GB turns into unusable space and I can't create ext4 out of it. I tried reverting the changes this time first creating the 96GB of ext4 drive- it gets created but the remaining 4GB appears unusable so I can't create a swap drive out of it. I tried it with different sizes, still no good. How can I fix this issue?

Solution

That is becuase MBR disks only support a maximum of four primary partitions.

Use an extended partition for Ubuntu & swap instead.

Comments

[You'reAGitForNotUsingGit]

@cinnaroll45 - Boot to the live desktop and launch Gparted. Then follow this guide: help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/ExtendedPartition