Hallo all,

I have got new dell Inspiron 6000 with 80GB scsi hdd.

the original partitions as detected by QTParted (on Knoppix 4.0.2 live cd) are as following:

sda1 98MB fat32 -- dell diagnostics
sda2 75GB ntfs -- windows xp pro.
sda3 4GB fat32 -- dell recovery partition.

I burned xp cd from dell recovery utiliy and also backed up the last recovery partition to a dvd. So I deleted that partition and also resized the ntfs partition (without any probs !) to make space for installing dual boot system. my new paritions are as following:

sda1 98MB fat32 -- dell diagnostics
sda2 60gb ntfs -- windows xp (resized)
sda3 (approx)18gb ext3 -- ext3 linux
sda4 1gb swap -- linux swap.


Now, I know that we can have only 4 primary partitions and for linux(debian etch) I need some more partitions atleast separate partitions for /home and / , so i dont lose my data while reinstalling.

I read somewhere that I can installl linux also on extended partition (logical partitions to be correct). Is it true ?

I have never tried it, so can any body tell me how to repartition my drive for linux installation no extended partition ?

thanks
Hardik

ps: i have tried to delete the first (sda1) partition, but after deleting I can neither move that partition at the end, nor I can resize ntfs to include it.??!!