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I want to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu, I already have win 7 installed in C drive

The question is can I install Ubuntu on unallocated space after the E drive? I mean this space is not behind C drive.

Will it dual boot? is there any risk on the drives before the unallocated space?

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  • The main risk to this is misidentifying a drive partition as you won't be able to refer to them as C: D: E: etc when installing ubuntu. The partition names might show "If you named them" but take note of each partitions size in MB beforehand & look in windows Disk management to see the layout visually. Feb 14, 2016 at 16:58

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We usually refer to "Unallocated space" as a part of a disk without any filesystem. So, technically, no, you can't install Ubuntu in an unallocated space.

But Ubuntu's installer (called Ubiquity) has a step which lets you partition/organize/format your disk. In Linux, drives, disks and partitions are not named with letters (unlike Windows), but with kernel-created special device files, inside the /dev directory. The first, main hard disk of a computer is usually represented by a file named sda. Its partitions are represented with the same name, but with numbers. For example, the first partition of the first hard disk is named sda1.

When you run Ubuntu's installer you'll need to format the partition where you want to install Ubuntu as ext4. Ext4 is the default filesystem for Ubuntu and most GNU/Linux systems, just like NTFS is Windows' and HFS+ is OSX's. You'll also need to set the filesystem's root's mountpoint to be in that partition.

If you choose "Erase disk and install Ubuntu" or "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows" everything will be done automatically, but you won't be able to choose how much space will be allocated to each system: it will be 50-50.

If you choose "Something else..." you'll be able to make your own partitions (including separate ones for /home, /var, /boot or any other directory), but have in mind that this is an option recommended for advanced users.

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Yes, you can and it will dual boot. All you need is any unnallocated space of roughly 25Gb or more (15Gb is enough for root for a desktop).

is there any risk on the drives before the Unallocated Space?

Messing with partitions is always risky. I would always advice to make a backup of important data.

It is always best to use a system that you understand to create "unallocated" space in it. That way you have a clear indicator when installing another system into that space.

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Simply, maximum 3 partitions and 1 un-allocated space required before installing Linux or Ubuntu alongside Windows.

If above per-requisite will match, you can overcome the problem.

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What other partitions are co-located with E: ? You should install Ubuntu to a "primary partition", and even if you use LVM, you should create a linux swap partition somewhere (1).

You should also think about leaving some unused space at the end of the disk, just for contingency if you need to rescue the system in the future (2).

(1) is for live distro booting if and when you need to. (2) is for putting an additional distro on the disk (for bootloader re-write, file recovery, say).

Be mindful that if E: is not the boot disk, removing or re-writing the boot disk will prevent Ubuntu from booting.

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