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I have been trying to do this setup right but it just doesn't work as I would wish to. First thing, I'm legacy, bios and have MBR so number of max partitions is 4. I already have 4 so it displays the 5th one I created for ubuntu as "unusable". So my goal is to take a partition from the second drive (Disc D) and install Ubuntu there. I tried the MBR to GPT conversion, seems like my laptop doesn't support it, which is weird since it's not that old of a laptop (Dell Inspiron 5559) Any help?

bazic
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  • What program did you use to try to convert the second drive from MBR to GPT? If Windows Disk Management doesn't work maybe try running GParted partition editor from a bootable Ubuntu USB live session. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 16:11
  • I tried via cmd, is there something I missed? – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 16:14
  • Maybe Windows cmd won't let you convert the second drive from MBR to GPT for some reason that is specific to Windows. GParted is an open source application, so there is no reason why GParted wouldn't let you convert the drive from MBR to GPT. That's one of the reasons why GParted is included in the Ubuntu iso file. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 16:15
  • Okay so, I realized I have one disk that is partitioned 4 times. So I really don't want to lose my data by converting to gpt.. – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 17:03
  • I have another question because it looks like you may be confusing whether D: in Windows is another hard drive or a partition. You said the D: is a second drive in the question's title, but I just wanted to make sure that there are actually two physical hard drives in your computer. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 17:22
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    No, that's what I thought. It's actually a different partition.. So I can't think of any way to install it alongside Windows 10.. the 4 partition thing is really limiting me – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 18:27
  • So the thing is i'm on legacy bios, and my partitions are MBR, meaning my system can support 4 partitions, so when I create a 5th partition, and enter the Ubuntu installation, it says that the partition I created is "unusable". – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 19:25
  • An extended partition cannot store any data but it can contain multiple subpartitions inside it, or in Windows it is referred to as a logical drive. An extended partition is needed to overcome the limit of MBR disks, which only allow 4 primary partitions to be created. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 19:26
  • Oh so im not actually making another independable partition, im only making the extended one? – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 19:31
  • Yes, you're only making an extended partition instead of a primary partition so you end up with 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition. You can install Ubuntu on any of the partitions including the partitions in the extended partition. It would also be a good idea to have an external hard drive handy in case you need it to backup data so you'll have a backup in case any data gets accidentally overwritten. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 19:50
  • Changing the partition type requires changing how exactly the partition is aligned due to how logical partitions work internally. So just changing the partition type from primary to extended (which in fact would be deleting the primary partition, creating an extended partition and then creating the logical partition within the extended partition) would cause you to lose all the data. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 19:59
  • Okay, so what I need to do is install it on the partition E (the second one) which is basically empty, and has around 550gb on it. So my worry is that after installing Ubuntu there, those 500gb would be unusable when using Windows 10, am I right? – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 20:01
  • I'm happy now because the 500GB on E: is plenty of space to install Ubuntu, especially if you already have enough space for Windows. An extended partition can have more than one partition in it including another ntfs partition for storing Windows files. Windows can't access ext4 natively without installing a program that allows Windows to read/write data that is stored on ext4 partitions. – karel Oct 03 '20 at 20:07
  • I don't know if I have to explain this again first partition on my laptop is C, where is where my Win10 system is (it's around 500gb), the other is E mostly empty (around 500gb aswell), the oher 2 are something about Win10 recovery which is around 500mb and System one with around I think 5gb. – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 20:08
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    Post details, so we can see: sudo parted -l converting from MBR to gpt normally erases drive. But you can convert in place, but either way you need good backups of data on drive. And good backups whenever making major changes to system. Converting to or from GPT - must have good backups. http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/mbr2gpt.html – oldfred Oct 03 '20 at 20:13
  • I figured this, I can shrink E drive to like 300gb, transfer it to C drive where my Win10 is, and install ubuntu on E drive, does that work? – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 20:26
  • Well, turns out it doens't... I can't extend a volume of a partition which is not adjacent. So shrinking the E partition, and adding that up to C doesn't work... What now? – bazic Oct 03 '20 at 21:47
  • https://askubuntu.com/a/126250/ – karel Oct 04 '20 at 08:08
  • For anyone wondering how i made it. I managed to do it using some 3rd party partition manager, search online and you'll find free versions of them, they will all you to transfer GBs from partition to partition however you like. – bazic Oct 21 '20 at 09:00

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