Unable to installed CentOS 5.6, Could not allocate the requested partition: Partitioning Failed: Not enough space left to create partition for /

Question

I have 160 GB hard disk and i recently format it and installed Windows 7 with following partitions

System reserved = 100 M
Primary partition C: = 40 GB
Extended partitions = 80 GB (with 2 logical partition E: = 40 GB & F: = 40 GB)
unallocated space = 28.95 GB

Now, I want to install CenOS 5.5 on remaining 28.95 GB Space While installing I choose custom disk layout and created "/" partition with Size 10 GB but but after that it won't allow me to create any other partition of any size (neither "/boot" nor swap) with following error.

Error Partitioning :

Could not allocate the requested partition: Partitioning Failed: Not enough space left to create partition for /

event if there is 28 GB free space available on my hard disk, i am not able to create partitions for Linux

Please tell me what to do.

Solution

You can only create 4 primary partitions on a hard drive. You already have 3, then you create a fourth for / so it does not let you create more. You would need to resize your extended partition and then create new logical partitions inside it to install Linux.

Alternatively, you can install Linux on a single partition. This is not the best way, you should at least have a separate partition for /home but it is not essential and Linux will work quite happily even if it only has one partition.

So, if possible, resize your extended partition, if not, just install everything in the same one.

Comments

[terdon]

@GaneshDake you have "System reserved", "Primary" and "Extended", that's three. Both System and Extended count as primary partitions with respect to the number allowed.

[Ganesh Dake]

That means i could not have extended partition if i want dual bootable system as system reserved and C:drive are must be primary partition. So what i will do is i will backup my data on extended partitions and marge the extended partition with C-dirve. pls let me know can I create the logical volume group in of new C-dirve for my data??