I have a Windows 7 machine I upgraded to Windows 8, so as a result I have BIOS and not UEFI. I attempted to install Ubuntu 12.10 alongside Windows 8 yesterday, and accidentally used wubi without understanding it had massive errors.
After completely formatting my hard drive and re-installing Windows 8, I want to attempt installing Ubuntu 12.10 again. I made the bootable USB again, but when I went to install Ubuntu, I didn't get the option to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 8. As a result, I have tried making a bootable USB for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and even Ubuntu 11.10 but none of them gave me the option of installing Ubuntu alongside Windows 8.
In order to rectify this issue, I figured I must partition my drive myself and continue with the 'something else' installing option of Ubuntu 12.10. Would it be better to partition my drive in Windows or the bootable Ubuntu USB? Second, is the fact that Windows 8 isn't recognised by Ubuntu indicative of some errors with the hard drive or my computer that I should fix before I attempt to do something manually?