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I'm trying to have Ubuntu and Windows 7 dualboot. I couldn't shrink the partitions while in Windows, nor could I do it in GParted.

I didn't get the option to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, so I had to manually adjust the partitions myself.

This is what I've arranged them as. Screenshot Is there anything else I need to do or can I hit install? I've backed up my HDD in case of an issue.

Thanks in advance.

Specs: (Dell Inspiron R17 N7110 Laptop)
- 500 GB Disk space, Windows 7 pre-installed
- 4GB DDR3 RAM (Will be 8 soon)
- Intwl Core i5
- SRS Premium Sound
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 525M

terdon
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    You don't seem to have a Windows partition anywhere. Did you delete it? Your /dev/sda1 is shown as ext4, so where's your Windows? That will be an NTFS partition. – terdon Jul 16 '19 at 16:01
  • It's the one that says Windows 7. That is what it appeared as. Also, thank you for cropping the image. – CStafford-14 Jul 16 '19 at 16:02
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    It can't be that. Not if it is ext4. Are you sure you haven't deleted your Windows? If you have not actually applied these changes, then *cancel now* to avoid deleting your Windows partition. – terdon Jul 16 '19 at 16:03
  • I'll do that. Mind if I send a video or let you use TeamViewer? – CStafford-14 Jul 16 '19 at 16:05
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    No, sorry, I don't have time for that, I'm afraid. And you really, *really* shouldn't allow random internet folks access to your machine like that! Just cancel this, then make sure you can boot into Windows. If you can, boot back into the Ubuntu live session and, before you start the installation or partitioning process, open a terminal, run sudo parted -l and post the output here (please post as text, not as an image; just copy/paste and use the [format]). – terdon Jul 16 '19 at 16:06
  • Ok. Windows works.

    `Model: ATA WDC WD5000BPVT-7 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 500GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags:

    Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 500GB 500GB primary ntfs boot

    Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes. Ignore/Cancel?`

    – CStafford-14 Jul 16 '19 at 16:24
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    Please paste this into your question as I requested before. Comments are hard to read, easy to miss and can be deleted without warning. – terdon Jul 16 '19 at 16:26
  • I'm having a hard time with formatting. I'm working on it – CStafford-14 Jul 16 '19 at 16:26
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    Don't worry, Just paste it in, I can fix it for you. But I can see from the comment that you do have an NTFS partition. So, when you try to install don't delete it! That will erase Windows. You need to ensure that you keep at least some space on the NTFS to have Windows. – terdon Jul 16 '19 at 16:27
  • How do I shrink it? – CStafford-14 Jul 16 '19 at 16:28
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1 Answers1

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The swap partition is a waste of disk space. New installations of Ubuntu 17.04 and later use a swap file on the / partition by default instead of a swap partition. Among other things this saves valuable disk space on SSDs. Another way of restating the same thing is that you only need one ext4 partition to fresh install Ubuntu 17.04 and later.

sda1 is your Windows partition. Don't format this partition as ext4 or else it will overwrite Windows 7. Instead leave the Windows 7 partition as NTFS and use the ext4 partition at /dev/sda3 for Ubuntu.

If you already overwrote the Windows partition, you should not install Ubuntu first, instead you should try to recover Windows 7 from an Ubuntu USB live session by following the instructions at How do I recover my accidentally lost Windows partitions after installing Ubuntu?. There's a good chance that you haven't overwritten any data, only the sda partition table.

karel
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