4 primary partitions. Shrink works. But can't create new simple volume

link626 · 13 Sep 2012

wondering if this is a limitation of having 4 primary partitions.

my lenovo came with 4 primary partitions (all tagged with dark blue color in diskmgmt):
200mb hidden system
650gb OS
Data
Recovery

I can shrink the 650gb by say 300gb, and it will make a 350gb unallocated partition.
If i try to create a new simple volume from the 350gb, disk mgmt throws errors saying 'not enough space to complete operation'

please explain to me, having 4 existing primary partitions does not allow creating any type of additional new partition (logical or extended) ?

Can I retag one of the primary partitions as extended using something like ptedit, and then will that allow me to create more logical partitions?

Brink · 13 Sep 2012

Hello Link,

You will not be able to create another primary partition since you already have the limit of 4. However, you could use METHOD TWO in the tutorial below to create a logical partition with the unallocated space.

Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

Hope this helps, :)
Shawn