----(begin quote)

I have a harddisk (NTFS WinNT 4.0) where I wouldlike to install NetBSD
at the end. The entire disk is declared as "extended partition".
As long as I don't reduce the size of this extended partition, I can't
install NetBSD.

How can I archive this?

Is the data inside the extended partition (logical drives and primary
partition) lost?

TIA

--
Cu  Georges Heinesch, Luxembourg
----(end of quote)

I've wondered if you could reduce an extended partition by the part not assigned
to any logical drive, or if you could expand an extended partition with the disk
space not assigned to either the extended partition or any primary partition.
But of course you can't expand an extended partition that spans the entire disk.

How do you get a primary partition inside an extended partition?  Primary
partition can't be part of an extended partition.  Is your WinNT 4.0 on a
primary partition or on a logical drive?

Different FDISKs and related programs have different ways of partitioning a hard
disk.  OS/2 FDISK assigned logical partitions and primary partitions, as best I
remember, with no reference to extended partition.  LVM (Logical Volume Manager,
the successor to OS/2 FDISK), can assign a partition (logical volume) spanning
more than one physical disk.  Linux fdisk can assign 4 primary partitions
maximum with no extended partition, or up to 3 primary partitions plus one
extended partition, and the extended partition would be subdivided into logical
drives.  Does WinNT put a primary partition inside an extended partition?  I
have never used LVM or seen it in action.