ubuntu says the hard drive is full even though it is not

When you boot up the machine do you get one option for booting into Windows and one for booting into Ubuntu or do you get lots of options for booting into Ubuntu and also have an option for "memtest"? Don't actually do the memtest, it takes ages, but please let us know if you have the option?

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)

I think you have installed Ubuntu inside Windows using the Wubi install.

A much better way to install Ubuntu is to put the Ubuntu cd in your cd/dvd-drive and switch the machine off and on again, this is a 'reboot'. Hopefully this should get you to a menu where the top option is something like "Try Ubuntu without making changes to the machine" and choosing this option should get you to a working desktop comparable with your Windows one, we call this a "LiveCd session". If you have trouble getting that far then this guide might help
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

If the LiveCd session works and firefox can find your internet connection so that you can surf to here then install Ubuntu using this guide
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

If this isn't what you've already done then you might want to migrate the Wubi install onto it's own proper partition by using this guide's, part 8 of section 8
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

I hope this helps!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

i get 6 options to boot up
Ubuntu Generic
Ubuntu Recovery
Ubuntu memtest
other os
Windows vista
windows vista

I am pretty sure i did a reboot after i put the Ubuntu cd.

thanks

Hmmm, its not the usual problem then. Where it say "Other Os" that's a heading rather than an option. The 2 options for Vista is unusual i take it you are using raided drives? It's often more difficult to install onto raided drives but you've got through that part already. Could you go to the top taskbar and click on "Places" and open your "Documents" folder. The status bar at the bottom should show how much free space it thinks is there. Also is you wastebin full of some huge files?

Assuming that nothing there has helped please go up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Partition Editor

and copy into here all the info in the bottom pane. Take care with the partition editor because you can destroy all your data very fast with it and i think we need to avoid that! At the moment i'm just interested in using it to get information.

Thanks, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

in the documents folder it says that I have 0 bytes available, and my trash is completely empty.

I don't have an option under administration for the partition editor. I did however go through my windows and find that i have the following volumes on the hard drive

Volume 1: 2.33GB (Primary partition I am assuming this is Umbutu and the reason for my issue)
Volume 2: 176MB (Primary Partition no clue)
Volume 3: 186GB (primary partition, Probably the 1st Vista)
Volume 4: 11GB (Recovery drive?)

I tried to shrink and extend the partitions using the disk.exe but that didn't work.

Any ideas

Thanks

Ouch. Yes it does look a little messed up but it's really difficult to use the Vista partition editor, especially for linux partitions, which it can't see or do anything with.

Do you have an Ubuntu cd? Hopefully you can just put this in the cd/dvd-drive and boot up the computer. Then choosing the option "Try Ubuntu without changes to the machine" should get you to a working ubuntu desktop, we call this a "LiveCd session", if it works. Here's a guide if there's trouble getting to there
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

The LiveCd sesion should have the partition editor but it only shows 1 physical drive at a time and i think you have 2 drives as far as linux is concerned, perhaps 8 partitions in total! Up at the top righ-hand corner is a button labelled something like "/dev/sda (150Gb)" clicking on that gets you the info about the other drive :) The firefox on the LiveCd should have picked up your internet connection and so you should be able to get into here from there :) So hopefully you can get the info to us that way? (fingers crossed)

I have to go out for an hour or so but post the info here and we'll try to make sense of it later.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

sorry it took so long, I am now running the live session. /dev/sda (232.88 GiB)

Partition File System Label size Used unused Flags
/dev/sda1 ntfs Recovery 11.08GiB 7.20GiB 3.88GiB boot
/dev/sda2 ntfs 185.52GiB 51.41GiB 134.11GiB
unallocated unallocated 33.78GiB
/dev/sda3 extended 2.5GiB
unallocated unallocated 2.5GiB

On the top right hand corner of gparted do you see a button labelled "/dev/sda" does this give another option when you click it? Please give info on the other drive if it does let you go to sdb

Ok, given that Ubuntu is not showing up as having been installed anywhere on your main physical hard-drive and there's a bit of wonkiness going on we can safely tidy up that main drive and perhaps install Ubuntu to that.

On sda right-click on the sda3 and delete it and then click "Apply" That should give you a 36Gb unallocated space we can use. Right click on that and create a new partition of about 10Gb, make sure it's a "primary partition, not an extended one, and set it's "file-system" to "ext3" (sorry the names are so similar but they are different things in different boxes). This will be the main place for Ubuntu and will have the OS and the programs. 10Gb is plenty, gparted will carefully make an 8Mb gap as a buffer zone between Windows and Ubuntu :) Then create another new partition that fills up the entire rest of the drive, make this one an "Extended partition" rather than another "Primary" one. Notice that this is quite different because it's hollow and allows us to put other partitions inside it. Drives can only really have 3 Primary partitions and 1 Extended but the extended allows us to have many more partitions than we would be allowed otherwise. Inside it make another partition, this one will have to be a "Logical" partition because we cant have any more primary one but that's ok. Make this one equal to or larger than your ram size, about 5Gb should be fine if you're not sure. Make it's 'file-system' "linux-swap". Then finally make another partition filling the rest of the space and make this a new ext3, again it will be a "Logical partition" - this one will be for "/home" which contains all your data & settings, as well as any Windows programs you try to install using Wine ;)

Please let me know when this is done or let me know if you have troubles sorting this. Either way i should be able to help you get through ;) The toughest challenges in linux tend to be at the start before we've really had chance to learn anything about it. You'll be fine though :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

all set. great instructions. I'm ready for the next step.

Still in the LiveCd session?

Top left-hand corner of the desktop has an "install" icon. When you get to the Partitioning section choose the lowest of the 3 options "Manual Partitioning". It give a scary moment while it re-scans your drives and then shows almost exactly the same as gparted (which doesn't need to be open by now) notice the difference in colour-coding tho <sigh deeply> <shakes head> Anyway, make sure that the only partitions that are ticked in the "Format?" column are the 2 ext3 ones and the linux-swap. Even they don't really need to be reformatted but it is essential the Windows ones don't get formatted or else you could lose all that data! Now the first ext3 should be sda3, 10Gb(ish), set it's "Mount point" to "/" also might be called "Root", set the other one, the logical ext3 one, probably called sda6, set it's "Mount Point" to "/home".

A couple of steps later you should get to a summary of what the installer will do and it's worth checking that sda1 and sda2 are going to be left well alone! Then let the installer do it's own thing for about 30mins-1hour and then you should be all good to boot into a very robust and reliable system :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I tend to play that stupid chess game or cards or something but i guess i should really let it get on in peace and quiet ;) lol

I'm in the prepare partitions window, step 4 of 7, all my partitions are there but it won't let me click on the format check boxes. when I click forward, it says "no root file system is defined, please correct this from the partitioning menu" what should I do?

Ooops, sorry. Yes this is where you need to right-click on the sda3 partition, the 10Gb ext3 primary one and set that one's "Mount Point" to "/" or "root". Dont forget to set the "Mount Point" of the other ext3 (the logical one) to "/home". It's either right-click or click once and then click on the "Edit partition" button :)

thanks I figured it out

Nicely done :)
Is it busily installing and coping files now then? or all done already? Probably got about half hour left i should think :)

no, all done, installing updates. Any suggestions on where to start first? Also, I have a DVD that I need to rip and then use the files on a Windows PC. Is there any way to do that in Ubuntu? if so any suggestions?

Thank you sooooo much for all your help. I'm sure I'll be asking more questions soon.

lol, you're welcome. Glad it's all sorted :)
Please ask separate questions as new questions so the "Solved Answers Database" doesn't get too confused and confusing.
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+addquestion

The next step is to get all your multimedia issues pretty much sorted in one step by working through the Medibuntu worksheet. I chose non-free but haven't had to pay for any of it. Not great ethics but it works more easily this way :)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
Maybe one day i will really free myself and go completely OpenSource but not today.

Try the top taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Sound&Video - Brasero

it might take a couple of test runs. I would advise getting a pack of 10 really cheap cds from tescos or something. Most of the really good options appear AFTER you press the burn button <sighs deeply> including the multi-session and "Windows Compatibility" options. I haven't really tested how good this last option is and whether it really works. A cd i burned for someone didn't work but that was probably their poor hardware and badly maintained Windows. So really i would say test out a cd on your own dual-boot into Windows :)

For the rest of the pack of ten i would highly recommend trying out the LiveCd sessions of a few other distros because it can be great fun. My favourite is Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
because it's handy for fixing a few Windows problems and lets me carry a familiar OS in my bag so i don't get forced into using Windows too often ;) A lot of Windows fans seem to really like the looks of Puppy but i think antiX looks better and sliTaz is awesome on old machines, it's 30Mb!
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
and then there are traditional Windows fixing distros such as SystemRescueCd and TrinityRescueKit
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=trinity
DistroWatch is a great place to find out about other linux distros, notice that Ubuntu is number 1 in their top 100 list! lol
http://distrowatch.com
People say that it's best to really get to grips with just one linux distro at first for maybe 6months but i think it's also good to explore others briefly while you're doing that and LiveCd is such a great way to have a quick try although some distros don't have that option on their installer cd

Anyway, welcome to linux-land, especially the Ubuntu corner :)
Regards from
Tom :)

Ps you might have another Ubuntu installed still within Windows, this guide might have hints on how to uninstall that one ;)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide
it's in section 4 if you need it.

thanks for all the help