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I have Windows 7 installed on a Notebook. Because I wanted to experiment with Ubuntu without loosing my Windows 7 configuration I installed the Wubi Version of Ubuntu inside of Windows 7. Since things seam to work out well with Ubuntu and my harddisk space is very limited, I want to make Ubuntu my only operating system on this machine. So my question is:

Is it possible, to install Ubuntu 11.04 additionally to my actual configuration (Wubi and Windows 7)? And if things turned out well with the native installation of Ubuntu, too, to delete Wubi and Windows 7 from my system afterwards?

Why I am asking this is simply, that I am afraid, that if I just format my machine and made the whole harddisk available for the fresh Ubuntu installation, it could be possible, that it turns out, that one thing or an other would not work properly, like it did in Wubi. (Possible Network, VPN, and Firewall@work issues) In this case I'd like the possibility to switch back.

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  • Please edit this question to replace loosing with losing, seam with seem, and the installation tag with system-installation.
    – mickmackusa
    Dec 7, 2021 at 1:28

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What you ask is possible when you install ubuntu on a seperate partition. You can also make a seperate partition and move your wubi to that partition - so you will keep all your installations (look for script for moving wubi to its own partition). I did it even, but afterwards I did a complete installation. 20 GB partition for ubuntu is enough.

Even better, you can make the partitions before you start. In wubi: install gparted, and make two partitons extra. First you have to unallocate space from your C drive (take 20 GB if you can). Then make a D partition of 20 GB in ext4 (not nfts like windows) and a linux swap partition of 2 GB. Be careful - take a backup before splitting you C partition. Here is a link with very good explanation: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition Good luck.

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  • I have only one partition with Windows on it. Does the Ubuntu CD have the possibility to make this partition smaller and create a new one for Ubuntu?
    – Aufwind
    Jun 4, 2011 at 12:29
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This HOWTO describes how to migrate a Wubi install to partition. The partition(s) must be created already - this is not covered in this guide.

The migration supports Wubi installs from 8.04 to 11.04, with Grub2 or grub-legacy.

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I would use Windows 7's Disk management to shrink the C: partition, rather than gparted. Once you've done that you can use gparted from Wubi to create a new extended partition in that space, with two logical partitions for Ubuntu. Otherwise you have to use a live CD/USB to partition as Gparted won't work on a mounted partition; plus using Windows 7 to partition is safer for Windows.

Then the migration linked to already will move the Wubi install to the new partitions. After that you can leave Windows 7 or remove it.

PS. When you use Windows 7 to partition, make sure you don't allow it to convert to "dynamic" partitions. This can happen if you already have 4 primary partitions, but won't be usable by Ubuntu.

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