[kcihtred2]

again, i need FREE windows software that allows for a linux partition, and how to install and use. because the disks wont boot

[mphenterprises]

Unless I am completely missing your point, I think you have all the resources that you need. Ubuntu is free, GParted Live CD is free, and the article that gives you step by step instructions to dual boot was provided in my initial post.

You download Ubuntu, download the GParted Live CD .iso and burn it to a CD, run the GParted application to partition your hard drive, and install Ubuntu within that partition. As Smax mentioned, back up your important data in case GParted formats the hard drive before creating the partition. I am not sure what other information you need.

[gearGE]

mphenterprises said:

Hi Gear. Welcome to PCWorld. :-)




If you could, please provide some steps as to how one would create partitions using the default Windows Disk Management utility. This question came up once. Someone could not find how to use that utility to create separate partitions. I have that application open now and I still cannot see how to create a partition.

This would clear up a lot of confusion and potentially save people money.

Thanks for welcoming me to PCWorld. :-)
Now about your words there. I suppose you found Help and Support Center helpfull regarding that subject. But since I like the concept of tutorials, I decided to make a quick one right here. Hope you'll find it usefull.
How to create new partitions useing the Disk Management utility in Windows 2000, XP & Vista (I think:-).
In Windows open the Disk Management utility. There are two wayes to do this:
1) Right-click on the My Computer icon (either on your desktop, or in your start menu), select "Manage". Take a look at the console tree on the left side of the window, you will find "Disk Management" right under Storage. Click "Disk Management".
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2) Go to: Control Panel -> Administrative Tools. Double-click on Computer Management. Find and click "Disk Management".

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Look at the lower left side of the Disk Management window. You will see all the partitions and unallocated space on your drive(s) represented as colore coded rectangles (black line on top of a rectangle for unallocated space, blue for a Primary partition , green for an Extended partition and light blue for a Logical drive in an extended partition).
With Disk Management utility in Windows, to create a partition you need to have unallocated space (as it has no ability to resize existing partitions). This If you don't have unallocated space, or it's not big anough for your needs, it's probbably time to delete some existing partition. If you are trying to expend you're unallocated space, you will need to delete a partition right next to that unallocated space (you might need to relocate some of your data to do this).



To create a new partition right-click on rectangle reprizenting unallocated space and chose "New Partition...".



On the folowing screenshot you will see how I create a new partition outside an extended partition, but it would be alot smarter and comfortable to give an extended partition most of your hard drive space as it gives you the ability to create alot of logical drives (this is how partitions are called inside an extended partition).





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New Partition Wizard will guide you through the way of creating a new partition. Click "Next >". Here you will be asked to select a patrition type.



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As you can see from the picture I was only able to create a Primary partition. This is because I already had an Extended partition on my HDD. You are able to create an extended partition only once! Also, if you were tryng to create a pertition inside an extended one, you would only see "Logical drive" shine in this window ;-)



In the next dialog window you will be asked to specify partition (logical drive) size. This part is all up to you, let us move on ..



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Next we need to assign drive letter or path. For now, since we are new to doing this :D, let us just assign a drive letter. I chose E and pushed "Next >"



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In the new window we can chose to format the partition/logical drive (in FAT* or NTFS file systems ) or not to format.



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If you are createing this new partition (logical drive) to have space to store some data (documents, music, videos ...) than ofcource you shuld format the partition (logical drive)! But if you are prepearing the partition (logical drive) for another OS to be installed in it, than there is no use in formating it as it is going to be reformated anywhay.



Than we push "Next >".



Before pushing "Finish" make shure averything is set up just the way you want it to. If not, use the "< Back" button to make configuration changes.



That's about it. You can breath out now :^0



P.S.: Windows Disk Management utility is not as feeble as one might think. To see what you can do with an existing FAT* or NTFS partition, right-clicking on it's coresponding rectangle (or it's name in the upper list).

[mphenterprises]

Hi Gear. Wow, thank you for that. Without a doubt your tutorial should be a document. Please click on this link and post exactly what you just submitted as a Document so everyone can see this.

Thanks again.

[kcihtred2]

not to complex things, but turns out i have a 90gb partition, and a 3.3gb main drive. -.- i found that out with cmd prompt and diskpart. And 3.3 isn't enough to run ubuntu. Any other ideas? BTW i have a 1gb flash stick and 40 gb external at my disposal if that helps

[mphenterprises]

Kcihtred, I am not sure if we are all on the same page. If you have a 90GB partition, you have more than enough space to install Ubuntu. I would not advise trying to create a bootable external drive nor would I advise, even though it's not large enough anyway, to try to boot from a flash drive.

If you have downloaded both Ubuntu and the GParted .iso, you have everything you need to create a dual boot system. Have you read the article I presented to you earlier?

[gearGE]

kcihtred2 said:

again, i need FREE windows software that allows for a linux partition, and how to install and use. because the disks wont boot

Here you mentioned that you were not able to boot from CDs. In your computer's setup (BIOS) is CD-ROM set to boot up first? If HDD has the first priority to boot, you must change this setting to boot from bootable CD/DVD-s and/or external drives. To enter BIOS do the following: when your computer is turned on or restarted, while the screen is still black, right before Windows or any other OS (alos boot manager like GRUB or Lilo) starts to load, push Delete, F1, F2 or F3.

I think you will find this page helpfull regarding {font:Arial}{size:2}key command(s) you will need to enter your BIOS. {size}{font}

[kcihtred2]

heres my hard drive layout (and mph i think you are missing what im saying).
C: Windows XP Home 90GB, partition of D:

D: No OS 3.3GB, main drive

I think when i formated the hard drive, the D: was left and turned into the primary becase that was a untouched partitioned recovery drive. And considering that wasn't formatted, it probally became the letter for the hard drive. So what i need is a way to resize D: or make a partition out of a partition (C:)

[mphenterprises]

Okay, according to your layout, you should be able to partition C: to install Ubuntu. Now, you know the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. So that we are on the same page, do me a favor, provide us with a screen shot of either:

- your My Computer Windows Explorer screen (RIght Click on My Computer and click Open)

OR

- the Disk Management main screen (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management)




If you are not sure how to upload a screen shot, follow the instructions in this Document

[kcihtred2]

well im at school at the moment, so ill get it up in about 6 hours.

[smax013]

kcihtred2 said:

heres my hard drive layout (and mph i think you are missing what im saying).

C: Windows XP Home 90GB, partition of D:

D: No OS 3.3GB, main drive


I think when i formated the hard drive, the D: was left and turned into the primary becase that was a untouched partitioned recovery drive. And considering that wasn't formatted, it probally became the letter for the hard drive. So what i need is a way to resize D: or make a partition out of a partition (C:)

GParted should be all you need to "shrink" the C: partition and "expand" the D: partition. Just need to boot off the GParted Live CD and go from there.

[kcihtred2]

1 problem, even though i have the boot menu set to boot from my optical drive, it will automatically boot to windows when the disk is inserted. If theres a way to do it from windows that would probally be the best. BTW i formatted my hard drive to see if i could reverse the process of having the D: as the primary but it didn't work. i hate emachines

[mphenterprises]

I do not think this has anything to do with eMachines. Let's try to figure this out. I am going under the assumption that you went into the BIOS, went to the Boot Sequence section, and made sure that the Optical Drive is the first boot and the Hard Disk Drive is the second boot, correct? Do you have more than one optical drive? If not, there should be no reason why Windows boots up when you put in the Ubuntu .iso CD. The only thing I can think of is that the .iso CD that you created was not created properly. If this is the case, the BIOS would not find any bootable device in the Optical Drive and then would revert to the Hard Drive to boot from Windows.

Again, just going by this assumption, please verify that you truly have the Optical Drive as a first boot device. If you are not sure exactly how to do this, follow the instructions within this Document.

Also, according to your layout, you are showing D: as the primary drive and C: as the Recovery partition, correct? Again, I do not think this is an issue. Gear presented a perfect tutorial for you that was turned into a Document. You should be able to partition D: for another Operating System installation, Ubuntu.

I think you have all the tools you need to make this work. Once we get around the boot sequence issue, I think you will be good to go.

[gearGE]

I agree with Mph. May be you burned the .iso file as DATA? You shuld burn a .iso file on CD/DVD in an ISO format, otherwise the disk won't be bootable! If your current CD/DVD burning software doesn't support burning in ISO, consider useing an excellent freeware CDBurnerXP (on Softpedia )

[kcihtred2]

well ive been burning with windows explorer, so ill try that on both gparted and ubuntu

[mphenterprises]

Kcihtred, if the Ubuntu .iso CD is not formatted correctly, this whole process is moot. I know Windows has a default burning application; however, I do not know how well it burns .iso files.

If you do not have applications like Power ISO or Nero, the application that Gear suggested to you should work for you. Try to burn another Ubuntu CD and try the process again.

[gearGE]

mphenterprises said:

Kcihtred, if the Ubuntu .iso CD is not formatted correctly, this whole process is moot. I know Windows has a default burning application; however, I do not know how well it burns .iso files.

The default burning tool (or CD Writing Wizard) in Windows XP only has the ability to burn data CDs. No ISO support, what so ever! It also has NO support for any tipe of DVDs, CDs with both sides to burn on (don't know how they are exectly called:-) and, obviously, LightScribe too :-) . The disk burning tool in Vista is a bit beter as it finally works with DVDs. But, again, no ISO support!

[mphenterprises]

gearGE said:

>

Quote

It also has NO support for any tipe of DVDs, CDs with both sides to burn on (don't know how they are exectly called:-)

I believe you meant Dual Layer DVDs :-) I don't know if there is such a thing as Dual Layer CDs. But yeah, in this case, the .iso was not created properly so once that is done, the installation of Ubuntu should be flawless.

[gearGE]

Kcihtred, if you have just too much trouble with burning ISO CDs, you might want to request a free Ubuntu CD (ISO) from Canonical (the commercial sponsor of *Ubuntu). They say delivery may take 6-10 weeks, but this is not true. It took max 2 weeks for the disks to come here, to Georgia (not the one in U.S.). it shuld take less than a week if you are in Europe or North America. You also have the ability to buy this same CDs. In this case they shuld come in a snap ;-)

[mphenterprises]

Very good point, Gear. I actually ordered the CD and it took less than two weeks to New Jersey. The good thing about getting the actual CD is that you would not need GParted. Everything would be included.