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I've made my 8 GB USB flash drive bootable with Ubuntu and I tried to install it. It showed up but it doesn't let me choose which partition. I have 2 partition, C: which I have Windows 7 on with 58 GB of space and have E: with +900 GB. I want to setup Ubuntu on C not E. How to choose that, because it keep saying "resizing" and so on, and do not use this partition and I still don't understand how to pick C

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Is there anything on your C drive? If there is something on it you could swap or make sure whatever is on it is deleted. Kind of hard to tell with little info. Q Is you E drive removable? on my laptop the E drive is removable, then again mine is a disk tray. – czifro Apr 30 '12 at 23:49
nope , listen my C drive has my windows 7 < i want to install ubuntu on it too < and my E isn't removable .. it's a PC – user58962 Apr 30 '12 at 23:56
Ok calm down. Have you created a partition (using win7)? Thats the best way to istall along side win7. – czifro May 1 '12 at 0:03
i already have 2 partitions mate " first Thanks so much for ur efforts " i mean .. what to do to install without formatting or doing any bad things to my stuff on the pc . ? i have 2 partitions and i want to install ubuntu on any of them .. without resizing or doing any changes . – user58962 May 1 '12 at 0:08
Ok if you want ubuntu on the C drive too. you'll need to partition the C drive. Otherwise swap, which doesn't sound like what you want. I'm not sure how small of space win7 can have to work, because 58 gb is already small-(ish). – czifro May 1 '12 at 0:17
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2 Answers

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I think you don't quite get the concept of installing a new OS :)

Normally, an operating system is not installed on the same partition as some other operating system - you need to create a "partition" on your disk; to make some space for a new partition you need to either delete an existing partition or resize/move existing partitions to free up some space. What you see as C and E drives in Windows are two partitions formatted as NTFS - they're fine for Windows but you (generally) can not install Ubuntu on them. That's why the installer wants to resize the partitions.

Now, there's one "if": Ubuntu, being an incredibly flexible system, has an additional mode, called "wubi", which via some trickery installs Ubuntu into a file which is located on one of the existing Windows partitions. This mode has some advantages (no need to create partitions) and possibly disadvantages. If that's what you want to do, you need to boot into Windows, insert Ubuntu USB and start the install process from there. See Wubi Guide for details.

If you boot from that USB into live Ubuntu environment, however, it will assume you want to install Ubuntu onto a separate partition. Be careful not to force it to install on your current C: drive in this mode as this will remove your current Windows installation.

As always - make sure you have a backup of all your important data.

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I personally prefer separate partition. Also glad someone else joined to better explain. Thanks @Sergey! – czifro May 1 '12 at 0:51
Oh Sir Sergey , I think i got it now .. well , ok i don't need to install it to C i want it on my E < so which option should i use ? PS : my C is 58 GB & my E is 900 and i have 10 gb on E free & 10 gb on C free .. – user58962 May 1 '12 at 3:04
It may be tricky to get enough free space for a new partition if you only have 20Gb free on your whole drive because resizing a partition requires a continuous block of empty space at the end of partition. You may try a Wubi install which requires 5 Gb of disk space on one of your existing partitions (I'm not sure if you'll be able to choose where to install it though) – Sergey May 1 '12 at 4:03
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You cannot install two OS's onto the same partition. It is a universal computing law.

Wubi, as suggested as Sergey, is not a way to install on the same partition, rather just trickery that puts ubuntu in a file. However, many users do not like wubi (as it is slower than normal ubuntu). You will ENTIRELY REMOVE YOUR WINDOWS if you install on C (unless you use wubi).

What you should do instead is resize E. Make a 100GB partition (lets call it U, for ubuntu). Install Ubuntu on U. This should work.

A detailed guide can be found here.

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1  
The universal law is broken with Windows 95 and Windows 3.1. – ObsessiveSSOℲ Jul 24 '12 at 15:09
@ObsessiveFOSS Microsoft thinks they can break all the universal laws... – JXPheonix Jul 24 '12 at 15:13
Unfortunately, yes. – ObsessiveSSOℲ Jul 24 '12 at 15:14

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