How to partition the hard drive and with which file system?

Question

I have a 238 GB formatted HDD, and 3GB of RAM. I am thinking a 20-30 GB OS partition, and NTFS for data for obvious reasons. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Before you add the NTFS partition, you are going to install Ubuntu. First, you need to visit http://www.ubuntu.com/download, select Try it from a CD or USB stick, then follow the instructions to make a CD, if at all possible, or a USB. After you have created an Ubuntu USB or CD, insert the CD or USB into your computer, and then restart your computer. It should automatically boot into the USB or CD, where you will be presented with a screen that looks like this:

You will want to select Install Ubuntu. Then, you will be presented with a screen that looks like this:

Ensure that you see two green check marks. Then, check the two checkboxes and press Continue.

Then, select Something Else from the screen that appears.

Assuming that your hard drive is blank, you should see a screen similar to the one below. You will need to select New Partition Table, then add a partiton for Ubuntu. If you want a 20 Gigabyte partition, you shoudl enter 20480 megabytes as the size. For Use As, you will want to select Ext4 Journaling System, and for the Mount Point enter a forward slash /. Then, click Install Now, and continue with the rest of the installation. Note that my screenshot will look different from your, as I have a different hard disk.

Once you have completed the installation and booted into your new Ubuntu installation, it is time to add the NTFS partition. Open up a Terminal window, and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y gparted

You will need to enter your password when prompted. After these commands have finished, open up Gparted. After you enter your password, you will see a screen similar to this:

In this case, my screenshot will differ significantly from yours, as your hard drive will only have one partition at this point. Underneath the word Partition, click the the word unallocated, which on your screen should be the second item underneath the word partition. Next, click on the plus icon in the top left-hand corner, under the word Gparted. In my screenshot, I had to select Logical Partition, but you should select Primary Partition. You will want to set File System to ntfs, and New Size to the size to mebibytes that you want the partition to be. You can Google the appropriate conversion you need to preform. For example, typing in, '20 Gigiabytes in mebibytes' will give you the number of mebibytes in 20 gigabytes. If you want to fillw up the entire disk with the partition, just drag the arrow pointing the right all the way to the right side of the window. You can leave everything else as it is. When you are finished, click Add, then click Edit > Apply All Operations. wait for the partition to be created before closing Gparted. You're done!