9.10 Partitioner will not give option to partition

[michaelmcnutt]

Trying to install as dual boot with windows XP-home edition, have 18G available free, but the partitioner on the live CD (direct install or from desktop) will not give an option to re-partition automatically. Instead partitioner on installer says there is only 7MB free space (but windows says 18G) and it gives me three options;

1. Erase and use the entire disk "SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sda) - 30.0 GB ATA HITACHI_DK12EA-3"
2. Use the largest continuous free space
3. Specify partions manually

Option 3 again presents the disk as nearly full and will not allow me to proceed with changing the partition size.

How do I get the installer to properly partition my HDD?

Equipment
DELL Inspiron 1100 laptop
1G RAM
Intel Celeron 2.2GHZ
30G HDD (18G free)

[raymondh]

Trying to install as dual boot with windows XP-home edition, have 18G available free, but the partitioner on the live CD (direct install or from desktop) will not give an option to re-partition automatically. Instead partitioner on installer says there is only 7MB free space (but windows says 18G) and it gives me three options;

1. Erase and use the entire disk "SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sda) - 30.0 GB ATA HITACHI_DK12EA-3"
2. Use the largest continuous free space
3. Specify partions manually

Option 3 again presents the disk as nearly full and will not allow me to proceed with changing the partition size.

How do I get the installer to properly partition my HDD?

Equipment
DELL Inspiron 1100 laptop
1G RAM
Intel Celeron 2.2GHZ
30G HDD (18G free)

Quick question .... that 18GB free ..... is it unallocated space or is it space inside windows XP that is free/unused by windows?

Regards

[presence1960]

1. First back up any data you do not want to lose!
2. Refer to #1!
3. Defrag windows at least once or twice prior to resizing, which I will explain how to do later.
4. Turn off System restore & page file from Control Panel until after Ubuntu is installed.
5. The above will make resizing windows partition go smoothly.
6. Boot from the Ubuntu Live CD. Choose "check disk for defects." If it passes then choose "try Ubuntu without any changes. When the desktop loads use gparted to resize XP's partition. You can access gparted by opening a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and typing
gksu gparted
Hit Enter.

Right click the XP partition and choose Resize/Move. A windows will come up and set the parameters to resize as you need. Click the Apply (green check mark) on top toolbar and let it work. It may take some time do not interrupt the process or you may corrupt your data. When completed close gparted window. This will leave unallocated space separate from windows partition in the amount you specified above.

Now try the install again and select the use largest continuous free space option. It will use the unallocated space you just made from the windows partition.

[michaelmcnutt]

Raymond; To answer your question - it is 18G free within the XP partition.

Presence; I'll try your suggestions and share the outcome. I do know that Ubuntu tells me my disk has a few bad sectors (got that from the 'info' button within the Ubuntu installer).

I did run chkdsk /f /r on a windows re-boot twice without incidence.

I'll share the outcome of running the disk check from the live CD.

Thank you both, Michael

[michaelmcnutt]

I tried the 6 suggested steps and the 'disk check' returned 'errors found in 1 file', but did not tell me which file had the errors.

Afterwards, I ran the live CD and launched gk gparted, which returned the original error from my first post.

Any ideas how I can get my HDD properly partitioned so I can install Ubuntu?

Thanks, Michael

[presence1960]

I tried the 6 suggested steps and the 'disk check' returned 'errors found in 1 file', but did not tell me which file had the errors.

Afterwards, I ran the live CD and launched gk gparted, which returned the original error from my first post.

Any ideas how I can get my HDD properly partitioned so I can install Ubuntu?

Thanks, Michael

That means your burn and/or iso is no good. I would not expect that Live CD to do anything properly. It does not matter which file is bad. I would burn another Live CD then check that disk for errors when booting from it. You need to have a disk (CD) that passes the integrity check.

[michaelmcnutt]

OK; I burned a second CD, this time with Linux Mint 8 (Ubuntu derived) and hit the exact same problem when trying to partition the disk (see first post).

I would really like to dual boot this machine, but I'm reaching the point of giving up and continuing to live with XP.

Any ideas? Thanks, Michael

[raymondh]

OK; I burned a second CD, this time with Linux Mint 8 (Ubuntu derived) and hit the exact same problem when trying to partition the disk (see first post).

I would really like to dual boot this machine, but I'm reaching the point of giving up and continuing to live with XP.

Any ideas? Thanks, Michael

Kindly (would like to check current partitions)..

If in Ubuntu, access a terminal (applications > accessories) type and post back results of


sudo fdisk -l

Small L.

If in windows, open the disk utility and take a screenshot of what it outputs. That or manually copy (include primary and logicals, if any)

Regards,

[michaelmcnutt]

Thanks Raymond. The results are;
__
Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9dc96e9e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3647 29294496 7 HPFS/NTFS
__

If I am reading this correctly, it seem Ubuntu thinks the hard drive is nearly full, but under XP it shows nearly 16Gigs free.

I appreciate any help you can offer. Michael

[michaelmcnutt]

Hello; Any ideas how to get the partioner to work (see previous posts)? Thanks, Michael

[audiomick]

Hi Michael.
To try and make this clearer for me.
You said in one post that you launched gparted from the live CD. You seem to think that this should offer you an automatic partition option. This is not the case, that is only in the installer (which you say isn't offering that either.

Can you do anything at all in gparted from the live cd? You should be able to click on the right hand border of your ntfs partition and drag it to the left. Can you do this?

[eik01]

It sounds to me like the free space in Windows means the whole drive is allocated to XP and that'll be why you can't install to it. You will need to reconfigure the partitions to unallocate the space you want.

Where in XP are you seeing the free space? Disk Management or just in My Computer?

[michaelmcnutt]

Hi Michael.
To try and make this clearer for me.
You said in one post that you launched gparted from the live CD. You seem to think that this should offer you an automatic partition option. This is not the case, that is only in the installer (which you say isn't offering that either.

Can you do anything at all in gparted from the live cd? You should be able to click on the right hand border of your ntfs partition and drag it to the left. Can you do this?

Hi Audiomick; Thanks for your suggestion. When I click the right hand border of the NTFS partition and try to drag it, nothing happens.

[michaelmcnutt]

It sounds to me like the free space in Windows means the whole drive is allocated to XP and that'll be why you can't install to it. You will need to reconfigure the partitions to unallocate the space you want.

Where in XP are you seeing the free space? Disk Management or just in My Computer?

Hi Eik01; Good point. I'm seeing the free space in 'My Computer'; I don't know how to get to 'Disk Management'.

[eik01]

Hi Eik01; Good point. I'm seeing the free space in 'My Computer'; I don't know how to get to 'Disk Management'.

Yup just as I thought. The space isn't truly "Free", it is just unused space on the Windows partition. Haven't messed with it, but I believe Gparted is what you need to use to resize the XP partition so you can do the install.

[presence1960]

Hi Eik01; Good point. I'm seeing the free space in 'My Computer'; I don't know how to get to 'Disk Management'.

You don't want to use disk management in XP. I already explained how to take the free space from windows partition and create space for ubuntu in post #3

You can't just drag the corner of any partition in gparted. You must first right click the partition you want to take space from and choose Resize/Move. Then a window will come up in which you can grab the edge of the partition and move it to allocate space. Michael go back to post # 3 for you obviously either do not understand or you did not do it or it was done incorrectly.

P.S. you also want to be careful because your windows partition will be close to capacity after you resize it. If you take too much from it it may become inoperable or run very slowly.

[michaelmcnutt]

I have tried running gkparted via 4 distros of Linux now, none will allow the Windows partition to be resized by more than 8 megs even though nearly 16G is free in that partition.

Distros tried;
Ubuntu 9.10
Linux Mint 8
DSL
Linux recovery utilities live CD

Any other suggestions for resizing my windows partition to allow dual booting XP / Ubuntu 9.10?

Thanks, Michael

[presence1960]

I have tried running gkparted via 4 distros of Linux now, none will allow the Windows partition to be resized by more than 8 megs even though nearly 16G is free in that partition.

Distros tried;
Ubuntu 9.10
Linux Mint 8
DSL
Linux recovery utilities live CD

Any other suggestions for resizing my windows partition to allow dual booting XP / Ubuntu 9.10?

Thanks, Michael

Well for whatever reason you can't seem to partition your hard disk. It could be a windows problem or you just don't know how to use gparted. Unfortunately we are not there with you to see what it is your are doing with gparted.

See here (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/ResizingPartition) to confirm this is how you are trying to resize XP's NTFS partition.

[Bartender]

Michael -
I see a problem here. You have a 30GB HDD, and you're trying to shove Windows into a box so small that it has no elbow room. I've read several times that Windows will start to slow down drastically once there's less than 20% free space left on the drive. Maybe my math or concept of what they meant is wrong, but the way I understand that is you want to leave at least 6GB free for XP.

Maybe this just isn't feasible for you at this time, but I think you'd be much better off to buy a bigger HDD and plug it into the laptop. I'm on dial-up so didn't look for the best deal but here's the first google hit:

http://www.amazon.com/Brand-160GB-Hard-Drive-Inspiron/dp/B001QWZ0ZQ

Maybe you had your heart set on doing something with this old laptop and not spending any money. I don't know. However, I'm quite sure that you would be much happier with the end result if you put in a new drive. A new HDD would be faster and quieter than the old one.

You could copy your XP install to the new drive, but if you've never reinstalled Windows from scratch and you have the original Dell recovery discs this would be a great opportunity to do so. Old Windows installs fill up with crud over the years, and a fresh install can do wonders.

[michaelmcnutt]

Presence and Bartender; Thank you both for your suggestions. Michael