Confusion About Partitioning

Thanks for your question.

You can certainly use 10-15G for your ubuntu partition. The installer just gives a couple of standard ways to do it. One is to take all the free space of a HD. The other one is to resize an existing partition to half the size in order to create some free space.

You can always manually resize and create the partition space you need. You need two partitions one for swap (about 1.5 - 3 times your memory size) and 10-15G for the ubuntu filesystem are fine.

Here are some instructions about the manual resize and partition creation process: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

I hope this helps

dude, you cant use the Windows XP Drive Management Window to create Linux partitions..
Boot from the Ubuntu CD/DVD. The installation program helps u setup the partitions.

Send a greeting if u succeed

If u're having trouble with the Ubuntu partitioner, let me know, n i'l giv u a detailed procedure.

ralph, that somewhat helps, but when i do the manual partitioning, and tell it to section off 10 gb, it says its too small

but just let me get this straight before I end up ruining something. When I tell it to partition hda1, its only going to use freespace, correct? and not format it? I'm just worried because all of the other stuff is on there

Okie so u're having trouble with the Ubuntu partitioner..

While resizing manually, If you tell it to resize hda1, none of your existing data will be affected, and unpartitioned space will be created out of the free space in your windows partition. U can create new partitions on the unpartitioned space.

And to stay on the safer side, ensure that your windows partition is fully defragmented, and has 10-15 GB of continuous free space..

The Ubuntu partitioner should be able to do the job as 15 GB is more than sufficient for an installation. But if it keeps giving you error messages, you can try using GParted to partition your drive:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

GParted looks the same way as the partitioner in the Ubuntu installer. To use GParted, download the iso image from the above link, burn in on a disc, and boot from the disc.

It's still saying that 15360mb is too small for the root?
even after i defragged the drive to have a 30gb continuous 'freespace' area

I'm new to linux, and anything to do with it, so please be patient

and javaboy, I'll give that a try once I get some more blank cd's

But I would like to solve the problem with using only ubuntu first, if that fails I will try it

randizzle.. The windows drive should be defragmented in order to allow the resizing to succeed. It does not create any free space as being unpartitioned space.

Could you start a commandline terminal from your liveCD and run there

sudo fdisk -l

and paste the output here?

Thanks

i did defragment it, and like i said earlier, theres a fairly large space that should be about 25-30 gb of continuous free space

but i will run the terminal command and paste the output

disk /dev/hda: 100gb
255heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders

device boot start end blocks id system
/dev/hda1 * 1 11225 90164781 7 hpfs/ntfs
/dev/hda2 11226 12161 7518420 C w95 fat32 (LBA)

Yes.. this is what I thought.

You might have space inside your ntfs partition. However, You can not run ubuntu on such a windows partition. You have to resize you ntfs partition to make it smaller and then the remaining *unpartitioned* space will be used by the ubuntu installer to create the necessary partitions.

I hope this clarifies it.

So...I have to format it to fat32?

I'm not sure what you mean by make it smaller

Dear randizzle

I'l try to give u a detalied explanation and procedure..

from your post, what we understand is that you have a 100 gb hard disc with an ntfs partition and a fat32 partition, with no unpartitioned space.

To install ubuntu, u need a partition in a filesystem supported by ubuntu, the ext3 filesystem for example. In addition to this, you need one more partition called swap partition. you can findout wot a swap partition is, later.

Now, to create an ext3 partition, you need some unpartitioned space. To do this, you have to resize your NTFS partition i.e., /dev/hda1
Resizing your NTFS partition wont damage anyof the data in the drive. This is what you have to do to make your NTFS drive smaller and make space for creating a new partition. Ubuntu uses the 'gparted' partitioning tool.

To resize, boot from your ubuntu disc, and when its asks you to choose a partition to install ubuntu, it will show a few options like

1)Resize hda1
2)Erase entire disc
3)Use free space
4)Manually edit partition table

The first option is the choice you should go for.. before that make sure ur ntfs drive has enough free space and is completely defragmented.

Choose the first option and in the slider below, set the value to 15G, and click forward. now, it will resize your ntfs drive, create 15G of unpartitioned space, and then it should ask you how much to allot for swap and the main partition, and the type of partition to create for the main drive. i've got an ext3 partition. you can use that too.

then you'l have to specify the sizes. choose around .5 to 1.5G for swap, depending on your ram size. If u have a large enough ram, a lower size wud be ok for the swap drive.
 and the rest of the space wil be assigned for the main drive.

Set the mount point for the main drive as /
After this you can proceed as usual.

If you feel you want to edit the partition table manually, refer this: http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

Feel free to ask if you have anymore probs
send a greeting if you succeed.
good luck

No. Ubuntu (and linux in general) use a non-windows filesystem. Therefore you need a separate partition that is formatted by the installer. In order for this to happen, you have to have either an area on your hard drive that is not partitioned (i.e. neither fat32 nor ntfs).

The installer can help you to create such a space because it can resize your existing partition in order to create this unpartitioned space before it partitions it to the needs of ubuntu.

javaboy, problem is, it wont let me resize it to under 38gb, it repeatedly tells me its too small, and thats why I'm still stumped

raplh, thanks for further explaination, it gives me a little bit more insight into whats going on, but alas, the problem is still there

like i said, it wont let me created an unpartitioned space under 38gb

oh
then the only way out for you is to download gparted from the link i gave u
before, burn it on a cd, boot from it, n then create the partitions..

On 5/17/07, randizzle <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Question #6568 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/6568
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> randizzle is still having a problem:
> javaboy, problem is, it wont let me resize it to under 38gb, it
> repeatedly tells me its too small, and thats why I'm still stumped
>
> raplh, thanks for further explaination, it gives me a little bit more
> insight into whats going on, but alas, the problem is still there
>
> like i said, it wont let me created an unpartitioned space under 38gb
>

--
Regards,
Sahasranaman

"There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two
kinds of people in the world and those who don't."

Or is there any other way Mr.Janke?

Can i get detailed partiononing help ubuntu 7.04 and keep my windows i get errors when doing it please help??????

Can i get detailed partiononing help ubuntu 7.04 and keep my windows i get errors when doing it please help??????