Ubuntu Partitioning Problem on External Drive?

Question

I have a 500GB external hard drive connected to my Mac, which I plan to partition about 10GB of towards Ubuntu. The problem is, when I set up the partitioner through the Live CD, it says it can only partition a maximum of 7MB (yes, Megabytes). I have 420GB left on my external drive and it sets back to 0MB or 7MB when I set it to use 12,000 or so (about 10-12GB). This doesn't make any sense. File system is ex2, but it won't let me go past 0 or 7MB for anything! Am I missing something?

Answer 1

most likely problem is :

If you're already using this drive, then all 500gb are already probably partitioned in your current format.

If you can see '420gb free' in your file manager, that means the space already belongs to a partition. 7mb was probably the only part left unpartitioned.



You will have to shrink that existing partition to create continuous, 'unpartitioned' space. After this you will be able to partition that part of the drive (friendly advice: use ext3 instead of ext2 unless you have a specific reason for selecting ext2)



If you know for sure that the above's not the case, let me just say that I've had problems with ubuntu's partitioner in the past. The best open source partitioner to date is parted, with a very nice gnome front-end version called 'GPartEd', you might want to give that one a try. Just partition it with gparted as ext3, and then pick up the ready-made partition from the ubuntu's installer.

Answer 2

Do NOT mount the external drive if you are trying to partition it. This is a common mistake.



Make sure it's unmounted (do a 'mount' command). If mounted, 'umount /dev/ext_drive'.



Then call up cfdisk or fdisk or even use the gui front end to these programs.



You will have to delete all partitions FIRST, before you can repartition it.



It looks like all but 7MB is already partitioned.

Answer 3

All courses could constantly be put in on your well-known inner disk force considering while it starts off up residing house windows will look for each thing that's meant to be there. hence the errors messages. I recommend you attempt commencing residing house windows with the exterior force plugged in, uninstalling Ubuntu from the exterior force, then reinstalling Ubuntu on your well-known inner force.