Section E.1:Hard Disk Basic Concepts 109
Figure E–8 Disk Drive with Unpartitioned Free Space
If you think about it, an unused hard disk also falls into this category. The only difference is that all
the space is not part of any defined partition.
In any case, you can simply create the necessary partitions from the unused space. Unfortunately, this
scenario, although very simple, is not very likely (unless you have just purchased a new disk just for
Red Hat Linux). Most pre-installed operating systems are configured to take up all available space on
a disk drive (see Using Free Space from an Active Partition in Section E.1.4).
Let’s move on to a slightly more common situation.
Using Space from an Unused Partition
In this case, maybe you have one or more partitions that you do not use any longer. Perhaps you have
dabbled with another operating system in the past, and the partition(s) you dedicated to it never seem
to be used anymore. Figure E–9, Disk Drive With an Unused Partition illustrates such a situation.
