First if your system is an i5 then your BIOS is really UEFI (actually both). You have to install both Windows & Ubuntu in either BIOS mode or UEFI mode and if empty drive install disks should offer both choices. And how you boot install disk is how it installs.
Also then you have historical MBR(msdos) partitions and gpt partitions. Windows only boots from gpt partitions with UEFI. Ubuntu can use gpt partitions whether BIOS (with bios_grub partition) or UEFI (with efi partition).
gpt partitioning is required for drives over 2TB, so you do not have to use it. Most understand BIOS/MBR, but new systems are now UEFI and gpt.
Arch suggests gpt for SSDs. I use gpt on an old rotating drive just to learn about it. Once installed, I cannot tell any difference. But when I added my SSD I had to change to AHCI in BIOS and XP makes that extremely difficult to use, so I stopped using XP
GPT Advantages srs5694:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1457901
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPT
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives
Windows in BIOS boot from MBR will read data in other gpt drives. So you can stay with BIOS boot but have all but the Windows drive as gpt.
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