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I have a formatted 55GB partition as NTFS, the other part of the hard disk has Windows 7.

Is NTFS the right format for Ubuntu? If not how should I format it and with what format?

Once I finish preparing the partition, how do I install Ubuntu on that partition? I'm not sure how to set up dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows.

4 Answers 4

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NTFS is not the right format for Ubuntu. The best course of action is to delete the 55GB partition in Windows 7 and leave it unformatted. Ubuntu will then find the empty space and create 2 partitions it needs there. One of then will be in ext4 format and the other one in Linux/Swap format.

(Update as of 2019

Recent versions of Ubuntu creates a swap file by default instead of a separate swap partition as described above.

End Update)

Boot from the Ubuntu DVD/USB and you will get the choice of Install or Try. Choose Try Ubuntu. This will run it from the DVD/USB without touching your hard drive and you can see if everything, such as, sound, video, wifi, etc. work or not. When you are satisfied, you can choose Install Ubuntu from the live session. See: How do I install Ubuntu?

During installation you should get the choice of Install side by side Windows This is the dual boot option that will find the unallocated 55GB and do the partitioning and formatting for you.

The AMD part of AMD64 refers to the company who came up with the standard. It works in both Intel and AMD CPUs.

See: Dual Boot Installation with Win7 - Install Ubuntu in New Partition

Hope this helps

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amd64 image install a 64bit system, no matter if you have intel o amd. in order to install ubuntu you can boot the installer and choose the manual partition. delete the 55gb partition and create 2 new partitions. One should be for swap filesystem and you can place the root filesystem / using the rest of the free space and format it as ext3 or ext4. The size of the swap partition usually is the half of your RAM.

so you will have:

sda1 sw

sda2 /

sda3 Win7

When the installer install grub, will autodetect the Win7 partition.

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I advise you to ho here http://releases.ubuntu.com/12.10/ and use this type of image PC (Intel x86) desktop image . As You want to run in dual boot with windows it is indicated that you use ntfs but should work fine even the ext4 format for the partitions and the partitions you have to make are like this :

sda 1 -windows 7

swap - 2Gb (logical)

sda 2 - 15 GB "/" (primary)

Sda 3 - 38 GB "home"(primary)

Under the partitions you have an option on what device to install the system ,install it on the "/" sda 2 partition .

When u boot the live usb choose not to install but to try to see if it works how it should ,and after that run the instalation and choose to install ubuntu alongside with windows . Remember after you chose the partitions and made everything remember to mark the two squares for format the sda 2,and sda 3 before installing and after that install.

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You do not need to prepare a partition in advance of installing Ubuntu alongside Windows with dual-boot. Ubuntu's installer has a very easy to understand installer that will guide you through the process. It's as easy as this:

  1. The Ubuntu installer asks whether to install Ubuntu alongside Windows (dual-boot), or to replace Windows completely. Choose the first option.

    Installer screenshot

  2. You can choose how much space you want to give to Ubuntu by dragging and dropping the slider in the next step of the process:

    Installer screenshot

Full instructions are found in the answers to this question: How can I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu?


The hard way

If you absolutely must prepare a partition for Ubuntu in advance, here's how to do it.

  1. First, the filesystem must be ext2 or ext3 or ext4. It can't be NTFS or FAT, as these filesystems do not support file permissions the way Ubuntu requires.

  2. In addition, it's recommended you leave a couple of gigabytes for another partition called the swap partition. It does not need to be formatted in a certain filesystem.

  3. Launch the installer, and choose "something else" to select advanced manual partitioning.

  4. Find the partition created for Ubuntu. Select it and click "Change...". Select the filesystem ext4 (or ext3 or ext2), and assign it to the mount point /, also known as the filesystem root. This means that all Ubuntu's files should be installed in this directory. If you want to make sure that all existing files on that partition are deleted, tick the Format option in the main window.

  5. Find the second partition reserved for swap. Select it and click "Change...". Choose "swap area" next to "use as".

Note that the manual partitioning option also allows you to create partitions, so you really don't need to prepare partitions in advance.

Ubuntu will install the boot-loader GRUB, which will allow you to choose between Ubuntu and Windows on boot-up.

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