Topic: [SOLVED] Can't have overlapping partitions
Hello,
I recently changed some partitions on my harddisk. After that change GParted is no longer able to display the partition table. Instead it shows one single block with the text "unallocated". Double-clicking that block shows the error message: "Can't have overlapping partitions."
So how was this problem caused? At first my partition table looked something like this (square brackets = extended partition):
|-------------------[|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|---------|]
linux linux home swap
But I needed Windows for something, so I shrinked those two partition with Linux on them, in order to make extra room for a Windows partition. The result is as follows:
|-----------|-----------[|-----------|-----------------------------------------------|---------|]
linux win linux home swap
I can successfully boot from both Linux partitions and the Windows partition, so no problems there. But as described above, I can no longer use GParted to view/edit the partition table. This is the fdisk output for my current partition table:
$ fdisk -l
omitting empty partition (5)
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x94749474
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 43161599 21580768+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 43161600 92618751 24728576 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 * 92618752 624797695 266089472 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4 123636303 620584959 248474328+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 92620800 123633663 15506432 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 620587008 624795647 2104320 82 Linux swap / Solaris
I've searched the forums for solutions, and found several, but none explain how to actually do this (I'm not an advanced user). And I didn't find a clear explanation what exactly the problem is. Sure, some partition is overlapping another partition. But how's that even possible? How am I even able to boot from all three partitions without any problems?
One putative solution I found on the forum is to resize the offending partition. Another is to just remove the offending partition. But which is the offending partition? And how can I infer this from the fdisk output above? And what is the best solution, and what commands should I use to achieve this?