Trouble dual loading 14.04 and Windows 7 64 bit

Question

I am trying to dual boot 14.04 on my Lenovo laptop with Windows 7 64 bit. I have 3 active partitions in the 1TB drive, and have set aside a 30GB partition that I leave inactive before I switch to Ubuntu.

The installer tells me that there are no operating systems on this computer when I try to load Ubuntu. So rather than erase the disk I click something else and partition the unallocated space. When I click next I get a message telling me I have to fix something in new partition (sorry I didn't get the message copied before rebooting).

I do not have any discs for the windows system and Lenovo wants quite a lot for them since I am out of warranty. Is there any way to fix this or am I not going to be able to dual boot this machine. This happens on my windows 8 ultrabook as well when I tried loading it on there.

Answer 1

if u have installed windows before the ubuntu u need to shrink the partition that Windows 7 installed itself on. Before you do that, clean out any really unnecessary applications & data from your system i recommend "Revo Uninstaller" for this work,
after that open the computer, take note of how much space remains on your main hard drive, presumably labeled "C:". Head to the Start menu, type "disk management" into the search box, then hit Enter. (dont touch the 'reserver system' part)
Right-click on the partition (that you are wanting to install ubuntu on it), and choose Shrink Partition.
now you need to use GParted you can boot it from usb here's a link shows you how "http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php"
when you boot with GParted you will see the HardDrive part & ur going to choose the that you made it for ubuntu delete it then make a new one as ext4.
boot with ubuntu & install it on ext4.
/maybe you need to watch some tutorial about GParted Before doing this may you will loose some data or something.