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I've never done any partitioning before, and I want to dual boot Ubuntu along with Windows 8.

My problems is that Windows itself is installed on an 128GB SSD, while everything else (the documents etc) are stored on two 1TB SATA drives.

How should I go about installing/partitioning Ubuntu alongside Windows while taking up as little of the limited SSD space as possible? I want to allocate around 500GB to Ubuntu.

Sam
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  • Is Windows 8 installed in UEFI or BIOS boot mode? And then are all drives gpt partitioned? Generally you only need 20 or 25GB for / (root) and can have /home and/or data partition(s) on rotating drives. At least one should be NTFS for shared data. – oldfred Nov 11 '14 at 21:25
  • It's running in BIOS boot mode. I'm sorry but I couldn't figure out how to tell if the drives are GPT partitioned. Here's a screenshot of my disc management if this helps. – Sam Nov 11 '14 at 21:43
  • If Windows is in BIOS boot mode, drive must be MBR. You are only showing two drives? Linux only counts physical drives and then partitions on each drive. I would still install Ubuntu on a 20 or 25GB / partition, using Something Else. I would install swap & /home on rotating drive. Swap of about 2GB is all you need if you have 4GB or more of RAM. Make sure fast boot is off in Windows. http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation And: http://askubuntu.com/questions/163962/install-alongside-option-missing-how-do-i-install-ubuntu-beside-windows-using – oldfred Nov 11 '14 at 21:53

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Regarding this you can shrink the volumes od 128GB SSD from disk management and create an unallocated space around 20GB for Ubuntu installation. The 1TB will show in Ubuntu itself as mounted disk and you don't have to change any settings for this.

While restarting click F8 and Select boot from USB. Now while starting the machine will load with the Ubuntu cd in drive. Please select the unallocated space for installing the OS and let the installer to do the remaining things with typical installation. It will create the swap and other partitions. grub writing will taken care by default.

Note : once the OS is installed disable instant boot from bios in win8

BDRSuite
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  • So am I correct in understanding: I'll shrink the SSD to give it 20-25GB. I'll then shrink the HDD, allocating it around 500GB. How do I then get everything except the root partition to be installed onto the HDD? I just create lots of partitions for each of them in the 'Something Else' section of the Ubuntu installer? – Sam Nov 11 '14 at 21:47
  • You don't have to shrink to 1TB partition. Just leave it as it is. It will show it as a separate disk with data files in it as shown in windows. The reason for shrinking and creating the unallocated in 128GB is that the OS will be installed by formatting the space. But in case of 1TB it is just data available disk where it will shown same as windows. – BDRSuite Nov 11 '14 at 21:52
  • Answers to the following question might be helpful regarding manual partitioning: http://askubuntu.com/q/343268/40581 – LiveWireBT Nov 11 '14 at 23:00
  • Hi @vembutech, I don't understand your explanation as to why I don't have to shrink the HDD. Don't I need to shrink it so I have some blank space to set up my big /home, /var etc partitions? – Sam Nov 12 '14 at 00:46