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I have a HP Pavillion Sleekbook Touchsmart PC with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard disk. I want to dual boot Windows 8(which came preloaded) with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. There are 4 partitions of the hard drive as follows:-

  • C : Windows OS (104 gb free of 219 gb)
  • D : RECOVERY DRIVE (2.80 GB free of 26.1GB)
  • E : Software and Files (36.3GB free of 109GB)
  • F : Videos (43.7GB free of 109GB)

I was Reading articles on the internet involving multiple paritions and it is giving me a headache. I want to know how to create appropriate partitions to run Ubuntu. Do I need to format my hard disk and combine it into a single one and then load Ubuntu.???

I want ubuntu for the development tools. I am gonna be doing my coding there and also for watching some movies occasionally. Windows will be used for gaming and videos. So ideally out of the 500GB I would like to allocate Windows - 300GB and Ubuntu - 200GB. For any other media I can use an external hard disk.

How do I dual boot properly? Windows 8 has Secureboot and UEFI also so I am not gonna try this dual boot unless I am absolutely sure. I do not want to lose Windows 8 also. Please help!!

Charo
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user274949
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2 Answers2

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Your E: and F: are free of 109GB so, split any of one partition into two partitions on windows (can be done by partition manager in windows (+), free edition of AOMEI partition assistant :http://www.disk-partition.com/download-home.html) or by Gparted Live CD. (+) when using partition manager, you need to make sure your HDD is defragmented!

Leave new partition unformatted. Then reboot and insert Linux DVD or USB (+) (burned from iso) and choose Something else option. (+) recommend Rufus :http://rufus.akeo.ie

instruction

Then choose unformatted partition on which you want to install Ubuntu. Create new of Ext4 file-system and mount point '/' Be sure to specify the size ... say 20000mb and set to primary partition instruction

Then Ubuntu will be installed on that partition be sure boot loader is in /dev/sda

instruction

For selection swap area use any remaining partition remaining partition and set it to logical partition, and split into two (split any one and create further 2GB is enough, but recommend double your computer's ram) format it as swap area '/SWAP'enter image description here

Remaining partition should be set to FAT32 with mount point '/Windows'. This partition allows files to be accessed by BOTH operating systems.

After installing Ubuntu you can select between Ubuntu and Windows to boot at GRUB menu.

Community
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Pandya
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From your setup, its hard to get 200GB freed for Ubuntu. You can achieve this if you have an external HDD (about 90GB in your case).

  1. Backup everything other than Win's partitions (C and recovery) to external media. Then delete Software and Videos paritions. This gives you 218GB free space

  2. Install ubuntu to this free space, and you are done. Remember to create swap partition (min 40% of your RAM, max 100% RAM). It will improve performance. It the equivalent of Windows virtual memory.

  3. For Dual Booting, just sit tight and relax while you install. ubuntu installation will automatically take care of that. Make sure you select Device for bootloader installation as /dev/sda

Jay Aurabind
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