I cant make a partition for Ubuntu

Question

I am running windows 8 and I want to dual boot with ubuntu 13.04. According to this post:

Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI

I should make the partition for Ubuntu in windows 8. I opened Disk management, shrunk my c: drive, but I also saw in a video that someone make a swap drive. Should I also make swap drive, can I make it on windows 8, and can I format the Ubuntu drive to ext4 in windows 8? Should I be doing this on windows 8 or Ubuntu? What are the options either OS?

Answer 1

Yes. you can format ubuntu drive to ext4 using tools like minitool.

During installation, you can choose to install alongside Windows or install instead of Windows. If you install alongside Windows, something like this will appear:

OR

you can just make some free space in windows and start your ubuntu installation.Choose to install alongside windows and ubuntu will be installed in the free space.

Answer 2

I am running Windows 8 right now dual booting Ubuntu on a Lenovo Twist. I freed space on Windows, then booted with a Linux Live USB. From here it often goes to a prompt no operating system detected. I was trying to install 13.10. Because of this I picked "Do something else." From here I selected a partition all EXT4 and primary (because I'm using UEFI) for /boot /home and /. I installed and it all works fine.

Just realize Linux can't write to NTFS very well if it is with Windows 8. So a common share drive is recommended in EXFAT. Also, if you make FAT partitions in Windows for Linux it can't see files over 4GB if they are FAT32.

Answer 3

If you run Ubuntu alongside Windows, I think they do all the partitioning for you. However, I had a devilish time installing Ubuntu to run alongside Windows 8 in UEFI mode.

I had to go through BIOS and install in Legacy ROM mode with boot to CD first in the lineup.

• When I wanted Windows, I would switch to UEFI.
• When I wanted Ubuntu, I would switch to Legacy ROM mode.

With that said, I shrunk my Windows OS partition to its bare minimum in Windows first -- all of your extra GB will automatically go into a different partition.

Next I installed Ubuntu in Legacy ROM mode -- it will not give you the option to run alongside Windows. It will give you two options: one to install Ubuntu and erase everything (don't do that) and another to just install and create your own partitions, (do that one). It will ask you to partition and it will show you your new partition with all your unused GB.

You will have to create 4 partitions, here are the steps:

1. Click on the unused GB partition give it about 6GB mark it Linux swap.
2. Click on the same unused partition and click on " / " give it about 100GB (or whatever you want).
3. Click on the same unused partition click on " /home " give it about 100GB (or whatever you want).
4. When you continue, it will tell you that you need one more partition with 1MB, then continue with the installation.

If you don't mind switching at startup in BIOS between UEFI (Windows) and Legacy ROM mode (Ubuntu), this may be a tolerable solution. When I got used to Ubuntu, I saved the Windows 8 program on a disk and completely got rid of it, reinstalled Ubuntu and all of the partition problems became resolved.

Keep in mind that if you figure out how to do it in UEFI, it still holds. Create your partitions when installing Ubuntu, choose "install and create your own partitions".