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View Full Version : [SOLVED] Allocate Drive Space Question On New 11.4 Install



n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 05:59 PM
I tried to install 11.4 and backed off at the Allocate drive space prompt. My goal is dual boot with Win7 but I'm doing this on a netbook (Asus 1015PEM) without a CD/DVD drive for recovery. In it's factory condition recovery (such as it is) is done by hitting a function key (F9) during boot and /dev/sda2 is used to rebuild /dev/sda1 (Windows C disk). You might say that it is dual boot right out of the box and adding narwhal 11.4 would make it triple boot. (If anyone thinks I mis-understand recovery here please speak up. I am not as confident as I'd like to be that I understand it.)

I wish to use /dev/sda3 (currently the Windows D disk) for narwhal. I don't know how to reply to the Allocate drive space prompt. For the four partitions there are check boxs for Format. I presume that I check that only for /dev/sda3 since it needs to be ext3 or ext4 etc. There are five buttons of which the first two are grayed out. The five are New partition table, Add, Change, Delete, and Revert. I suppose that I highlight dev/sda3 and hit the Change button?? Below that there is a box for Device for boot loader installation:. The choices are 1) /dev/sda ATA 250GB, 2) /dev/sda1 Windows 7 (loader), 3) /dev/sda2 Windows Recovery Environment (loader), 4) dev/sda3, and 5) dev/sda4. Sorry but I didn't write down any comments for the last two if they were there. I guess that dev/sda3 would be the choice here.

Again, my goal is to retain Win7 and it's recovery and add 11.4 I'd appreciate any help. BTW 11.4 runs well from a flash drive. I was also skeptical about Unity but I like the way it preserves vertical real estate on the constrained display.

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 06:05 PM
You appear to have 4 primary partitions, (which is the maximum allowed on a mbr partitioned disc) though I have no idea what's in sda4 - neither does gparted!
You will need to delete one of those partitions before Ubuntu will install - otherwise serious problems will occur!
If you are sure that sda3 is your D: drive (in Windows parlance) and there is nothing in that partition that you need, you can delete it.
You can then install Ubuntu into that free space (probably in an extended partition).
You should also check what's in sda4 as well.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 06:28 PM
What I was thinking was re-using dev/sda3 as (as you indicated an extended partition to include swap). So, if I follow you correctly, delete dev/sda3 and the install will provide a follow-up with an add option. I presume that making it an extended partition will somehow become obvious.

I don't know how to proceed concerning dev/sda4. In the absence of knowledge I was going to merely ignore it.

My guess is that I have two options. Your suggestion of deleting dev/sda3 and re-allocating it or formatting it (with the Change button).

The question of the selection for Device for boot loader installation: remains. I need to know what to expect for the three boot possibilities: Win7, Win7 recovery, and Ubuntu 11.4.

Thanks,,,

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 06:33 PM
Unless you delete sda3 first I don't think the Ubuntu installer will offer anywhere to install Ubuntu (other than to use the whole disc - which you DON'T want!).
The device for boot loader installation is the drive where you are installing Ubuntu to - normally /dev/sda - NOTE, NOT a partition, like /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 06:43 PM
Thanks for those answers. After the install what I hope to be able to see is: 1) The Asus flash screen comes up. At this point I could 2) hit F2 for the BIOS (or whatever it's new name is), 3) hit F9 to recover Win7, or 4) do nothing and Grub (Grub2??) will give me the choice of Ubuntu 11.4 or Win7. Am I visualizing this correctly??

I'll probably wait until tonight to proceed when I'll have extended time available.

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 06:49 PM
After installation you will get either Ubuntu booting directly, or, hopefully, a grub menu with a choice of which operating system to boot from.
Please note, if, after installation, you choose to recover Windows it will over-write grub and Ubuntu as well!
And why do you want to get into the bios? You can do that now surely?

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 07:08 PM
I was merely trying to visualize all the possibilities to test if I was thinking clearly. I don't know if this is generally true, but on this machine a freshly inserted USB flash drive will be second in the boot order and I must change the BIOS entries to make it first.

Speaking of visualizing all the possibilities, many thanks for pointing out the consequences of a Win7 recovery!!

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 07:10 PM
No problem.
It is very possible that a Win 7 recovery would wipe out everything on the drive.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 07:48 PM
HELP!! I added an ext4 partition (no extended option visible) and when I hit Install Now I get a message "No root file system is defined. Please correct...". Going back to Create a new partition I specified 1) logical (pre-filled), 2) size (pre-filled), 3) location beginning (pre-filled), 4) use as: ext4 jfs (pre-filled), and mount point "/" (pre-filled as blank last time and this time). Is that "/" mount point correct??

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 07:54 PM
Did you delete sda3 first?
Yes the mount point for the root partition is "/"

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 07:59 PM
Yes I deleted it. Just changed the mount point to "/". Now a message "You have not selected any partitions for swap space...." It wants me to go back to the partitioning menu where I have a choice of swap area instead of ext4 (and other choices) but no combination.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:03 PM
I just changed logical to primary but am afraid to proceed. Does that make sense?

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:05 PM
Did you select "primary" or "logical" as partition type for "/"?
It needs to be logical, or you will be trying to exceed the maximum of 4 primary partitions.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:08 PM
The absence of a swap came about with logical. I don't know what to do to include a swap. Perhaps I missed something?? I am back to logical now.

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:09 PM
If you have 2GB of ram or more and don't intend to use "hibernate" you don't need a swap space.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:13 PM
I do have 2GB but the 10.10 machine I am on now has 3GB and uses some swap space occasionally. I didn't use the New Partition Table button. Is that of interest??

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:17 PM
No, just double click the unallocated space, or highlight it and click on the Edit button

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:28 PM
The choices are New Partition Table, Add, Change, Delete, and Revert.

I deleted it again and with add the choices are:

type: primary or logical

new partition size: ~126GB which makes sense

location: beginning or end

use as: ext4 jfs and other choices

mount point: "/" (primed with blank).

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:36 PM
Just double click on the unallocated (or free) space and a window will open. If you want a swap partition, make one, but change the size option first. Then OK that change.
Then double-click on the free space again and make your ext4 partition as logical with a mount point "/" using the remaining space - or any other amount you want.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:40 PM
Sorry if I sound up-tight, but I am. If I double click on the free space it comes up exactly the same as in add. There is no extended option to carve it into ext4 and swap. I'm concerned that I missed something.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:44 PM
Is it possible that ext3 jfs would work??

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:47 PM
No changes are actually made until you move on from that screen - after clicking on "install" if I remember correctly.
You can experiment a little bit.
Make a swap space with type logical, then OK it.
Then double-click (or click on Add) on the free space again and try to make a ext4 partiton for root with type logical. Does it allow it? Are both new partitions displayed in the original Allocate space" window?

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 08:53 PM
I deleted it, made it a swap file, double clicked to change it and selected ext4, and ended up in the same place.

The message says that the installation can go through without a swap. Could that be corrected later?? On this 10.10 machine (not the one we are working on) when I installed 8.04 I think (??) the installer set up the swap by itself.

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 08:59 PM
On the 10.10 installation you must have selected the "install alongside" option.
Did you try the above? Did you try to create a swap first with smaller size than the total amount of free space? Or did you make a swap file using up all of the free space?

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 09:03 PM
The 10.10 machine is also dual boot with Vista. It has two ntfs partitions and one extended partition with ext3 and swap.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 09:24 PM
Quackers, thank you very much for your effort and time. I have to leave in about an hour so I'm backing out and will try again tonight or tomorrow. If you happen to think of how I can make this partition extended to include both ext4 and swap please reply when you can. Also, it would be of interest if the absence of a swap could be remedied after-the-fact.

Again,,, many thanks.

Quackers
April 30th, 2011, 09:26 PM
Exit the installer and use gparted from the live cd to create an extended partition in the space where sda3 was.
You're welcome.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 09:32 PM
I did "experiment" with gparted while I was waiting (with the installation in-progress) without committing anything. The way to do it wasn't immediately apparent.

I'll read the gparted doc' tonight.

Again,,, many thanks.

n4lbl
April 30th, 2011, 09:38 PM
Just to be ornery, the 11.4 running from the flash drive wouldn't shut down!!

Again, thanks,,,

n4lbl
May 1st, 2011, 03:42 AM
Well, with gparted (not install) I took my dev/sda3 (Windows D) and made an extended partition which somehow came out ext4 and ~2GB swap which seems fine. I started install and seem to have stalled in Keyboard Layout. The file copying progress bar is at ~80%. It says "Ready when you are" but the forward or backward buttons don't work. Used space in the target is at 3.91 GB. I have no idea of how to proceed.

Dutch70
May 1st, 2011, 03:57 AM
Take the capital letters out of your user name. :)

use lower case letters only.

n4lbl
May 1st, 2011, 04:02 AM
I don't understand.

n4lbl
May 1st, 2011, 06:34 AM
Using GParted prior to install to make an extended partition worked. Many thanks. Now to figure out how to mark this solved!!

Quackers
May 1st, 2011, 06:36 AM
Thread Tools near the top of the page.
Glad you got things sorted out :-)
Have fun!

Dutch70
May 1st, 2011, 06:53 AM
I don't understand.

I apologize.

Using capital letters in your user name when installing will cause a similar issue,
and it's become so common lately that I assumed that was your problem as well.

Glad you got it worked out!

n4lbl
May 2nd, 2011, 12:08 AM
Thanks for trying and no need to apologize.

Now I'm on to the next treat. Audio that worked running from the flash drive doesn't work with the "real" install. Note: this isn't a request for assistance. Yet ;=))