# Partition Editor issue in Ubuntu installation



## nmithani1 (Apr 5, 2006)

I have partitioned my HDD into three primary drives, all NTSC. I've resized the last drive, drive E:, to anoher, smaller FAT32, Ext3 and Linux swap drive for Ubuntu. Regardless, the the Partition Editor does not recognise these new partitions and asks me if I wish to reformat the whole HDD, which I certainly do not, or manually edit the partition table. Sometimes, it gives me the option to resize partition E:. Selecting either of these two options and pressing forward does not bring up the next step, the cursor just keeps spinning and there is no progress.

Isn't it possible for me to resize my last partition to make a partition for Ubuntu (the latest) and that it would recognise it and use it? I'd rather make a partition for Ubuntu in Windows and then proceed to installation of Ubuntu.

The software I use for all partitioning needs is Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 (I used and didn't like the buggy Partition Magic).


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

nmithani1 said:


> I have partitioned my HDD into three primary drives, all NTSC. I've resized the last drive, drive E:, to anoher, smaller FAT32, Ext3 and Linux swap drive for Ubuntu. Regardless, the the Partition Editor does not recognise these new partitions and asks me if I wish to reformat the whole HDD, which I certainly do not, or manually edit the partition table. Sometimes, it gives me the option to resize partition E:. Selecting either of these two options and pressing forward does not bring up the next step, the cursor just keeps spinning and there is no progress.
> 
> Isn't it possible for me to resize my last partition to make a partition for Ubuntu (the latest) and that it would recognise it and use it? I'd rather make a partition for Ubuntu in Windows and then proceed to installation of Ubuntu.
> 
> The software I use for all partitioning needs is Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 (I used and didn't like the buggy Partition Magic).


It seems to me from what you say - i.e. 3 partitions all NTFS (not NTFC) means that you cannot install any Linux distro.

Drive E: as you call it, needs to be partitioned into something like 3 partitions:
/boot ext3
/ ext3
linux-swap

and absolutely no Fat32.

Don't know the size of your disk or partitions, but as an example, my 80GB SATA drive is /dev/sdb with 
/dev/sdb1 partitioned from 1-13 cylinders for 102 MB of ext3 for /boot
/dev/sdb2 partitioned from 14-9538 for 74,716 MB of ext3 for Fedora Core 3 OS
/dev/sdb3 partitioned from 9539-9729 for 1498 MB for linux-swap

Do the math to determine the approximate sizes that might (or might not be appropriate) work for Ubuntu repartition of E:

Sorry, thats all I have to compare to at present, although I do use an Ubuntu Live CD, but that's a memory mapped OS with no disk space useage - only RAM.

-- Tom


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## nmithani1 (Apr 5, 2006)

Can I install Ubuntu if I resize drive E: and make the three partitions you said?


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

nmithani1 said:


> Can I install Ubuntu if I resize drive E: and make the three partitions you said?


That's something you will have to try to find out.

I certainly would try.

-- Tom


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## Bartender (Apr 27, 2006)

I've been struggling (with some success now - thanks, saikee) with booting/partitioning issues. One thing that helped me out was downloading and creating a GParted LiveCD. It runs on top of whatever you have now, just like a Linux LiveCD, but the purpose of the GParted CD is to manage your partitions. I think it works better than the partitioning tool inside my Ubuntu LiveCD, probly because it's the full program instead of a trimmed one. And it doesn't cost anything.

Partitioning is a little scary when you have data you don't want to lose. I was very nervous the first time I dinked with the partitions, but after some careful poking around to see what I could do (or not) it didn't seem too bad. I can tell by your post that you need to familiarize yourself with some of the concepts.

You can't make "a partition for Ubuntu in Windows".

You need, at the minimum, two partitions for Ubuntu. One will be written in ext3, not NTFS or FAT or any other Windows/DOS based file system, and the other (much smaller one) will be the linux swap.
There are too many twists and turns for me to give you a step-by-step guide, but what I'd do is run the GParted CD and take a good look at what it sees on your hard drive right now. All you really need is one partition for Windows (just to be safe, I'd leave that alone if I could - don't resize it or muck with it anymore than you have to) and one primary partition for Ubuntu. Reformat that Linux partition to "ext3". Remember I said you need 2 partitions for Linux? Ubuntu will automatically make the "linuxswap" partition within the primary partition that you give it, so you'll end up with a third partition but you won't have to worry about how to do it. Woot
Or, if you're feeling adventurous, use GParted to create a "linuxswap" partition at the far right of the map. You only need 2GB for the swap partition and it can be an extended partition.
Anyway, when you're done with GParted you want to see one partition (probably over on the left side of the map) that's Windows, and one partition, formatted in ext3, to the right of Windows. Make sure to apply your changes, then make a drawing of what you ended up with. List the partitions, what filesystem they are, their names (dev/hda2 or whatever) etc.. I was just mucking about with GParted last night and that last step was a lifesaver a half hour later.
Then get out of GParted, toss in your Ubuntu CD, when you get to partitioning tell it you want to install to existing partitions. It'll open the abbreviated version of GParted and you'll see the same map of your partitions that you saw from the GParted LiveCD. Tell Ubuntu you want to install to that ext3 partition you made. It'll be /dev/hda2 or something similar. The rest should be fairly automatic. You want "/" to be in that partition. Swap will also go there unless you made a swap partition with the GParted LiveCD, in which case you tell Ubuntu to place swap there.
Ubuntu should install GRUB to your Windows Master Boot Record so that you'll see a choice when it first boots up and can go to Windows or Ubuntu.
I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but since I was doing a similar project just last night most of this is still fairly fresh. Plus I wrote down notes!! I can't emphasize strongly enuf how important that is unless you have a photographic memory.


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