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I have a bootable USB that has Ubuntu 15.10 on it. I used UUI (Universal USB Installer) to do this. Keep in mind that I have a computer built in 2010 that was made to support Windows 7, but I upgraded it to Windows 10. I have an old motherboard that doesn't have an option for secure boot or whatever.

I am finally able to boot from this USB but when I get to the partition part of the installation, my partition I made (70GB) says that it is unusable. Every tutorial I watch makes this partition and when they go into the Ubuntu setup, the partition says free space, then they go about making a swap area and installing Ubuntu. In the partition tab, how come mine says unusable space?!

I made a partition, I am using a bootable USB, but it doesn't work! I have tried everything. When I try to turn my Unallocated partition into an actual usable partition in Disk Management, it won't let me either.

Windows disk management screenshot

David Foerster
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Cameron Tredoux
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1 Answers1

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The problem in your case is that, in the image shown above your 289.09GB HDD is of MBR (Master Boot record)partition style which only supports up to 4 primary partitions (i.e blue partitions) .

If you want more than 4 partitions then you have to create an extended partition such that the total HDD has 3 primary and 1 extended partition. Then from that extended partition you can create any number of logical extended drives in which Ubuntu can be installed.

The one thing on your system I don't understand is that why you have 2 Recovery partitions each of same size.

And also the one thing I recommend is to delete one of the primary partitions, so that you have only 3 primary partition and keep the 4th one unallocated. Now boot from the UUI (Ubuntu Live USB) and click on "Try Ubuntu".

Now open Gparted Partition Editor and create an extended partition of that unallocated as a logical volume and apply the changes.

Now click on Install Ubuntu and you'll see that it has the option of installing Ubuntu alongside Windows 10 or you may use the "something Else" option to create your own partitions.

NOTE: I don't recommend you to delete the Recovery Partition as it may result in the unusual booting of Windows 10, but see in the Microsoft Community for why your PC has 2 recovery partitions.

If you need more help regarding this I will post pictures as I've also gone through this problem recently.

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Shreyas P V
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