Hey guys and gals I am in a, as one might say sticky situation, I wish to install Ubuntu onto a laptop that has a corrupt version of Windows 8 that will not let me bypass the recovery screen (Recovery and repair does not work, but BIOS does work [thanks]). Upon my decision to install Ubuntu I am having issues with the "work side with Windows" option (obviously), as I can not access my laptops data to back up, I am scared on loosing previously installed data for the hardware of my Windows 8 PC, and require information regarding weather or not the heard wear data will be preserved or destroyed. I would very much appreciate any help put forth and thank you for your time!
2 Answers
I think your concern is with keeping Windows hardware drivers for Ubuntu install? Don't worry- the drivers are OS-specific, and you don't need that "Drivers" folder.
You should be able to pop in the Ubuntu Live CD, and either install it directly over your entire hard drive, or (as I would prefer) use the gparted program to erase your entire disk, and then install Ubuntu there in the entire empty space.
As far as hardware issues, there shouldn't be any unless your computer is extremely old or maybe a few days old. I still think there won't be any.
I have installed Ubuntu on old Emachines, cheap HP-2000, three different IBM (woot) Thinkpads, and my current Lenovo (ew) Yoga. Never an issue; Ubuntu is super good at hardware, usually. Most problems could be a video driver issue but, generally easy to remedy.
If you need to actually explore the files and save some, I would still run the Live CD, open your Windows partition and try to get files that way. Backup to cloud storage or a USB stick, then install away.
Personally, I find a forced loss of tons of data liberating (albeit time consuming and damaging in some instances) from time to time!
Good luck, we're here to help.
For your personal data:
You can boot ubuntu live CD (DVD), choose "try ubuntu" and copy your data to another storage like USB drive or another computer or cloud. The best thing is to start with a clean (void of any data) disk when installing ubuntu.
For your device itself:
You should boot the ubuntu live CD (DVD), choose "try ubuntu" and check if your hardware works. Many devices from your laptop will just work, like: cpu, disks, video, usb, keyboard, trackpad. Some other devices might not work, like: finger-print readers, penabled touch screen (touch screens that will also work with stylus, they will work, but probably only the pen). Test your hardware and if you are pleased with your device you should install ubuntu on the clean hdd.
You can get away without using a separate storage, but this is for seasoned users and is dangerous and unforgiving.
