UBUNTU: Installing onto Laptop

Tican

Tican

Tican

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Hi all,

What's the best way to install Ubuntu onto my 80gb laptop hard drive with Vista? Is it best to partition it first? Or can Ubuntu do it? I have tried the live disk which works spot on, even the wireless :), I cant afford to loose any of the information on the hard drive currently :(

Thanks in advance,
 
try something like partition magic to partition the drive, this will shrink the partition without data loss, or there are enough free tools floating around on the web.
You could always try installing ubuntu to a USB drive?
I have 3 partitions on my laptop, 50Mb FAT16 for the boot partition, 30Gb Vista and 70Gb Kubuntu

You could always back everything up and do a clean install. Ubuntu will partition drives, but I dont think it will shrink partitions down for you
 
edgedemon said:
try something like partition magic to partition the drive, this will shrink the partition without data loss, or there are enough free tools floating around on the web.
You could always try installing ubuntu to a USB drive?
I have 3 partitions on my laptop, 50Mb FAT16 for the boot partition, 30Gb Vista and 70Gb Kubuntu

You could always back everything up and do a clean install. Ubuntu will partition drives, but I dont think it will shrink partitions down for you
Click to expand...

ah cool, I dont have the Vista disk either you see, hence why I need to do it spot on
 
Ok, was about to install it until it comes up saying:

/dev/sda1 NTFS /media/sda1 format? 5767mb, 3900mb used
/dev/sda2 NTFS /media/sda2 format? 74257mb Unknown used


now if i carry on will that delete Vista? :(

Edit: this is on the prepare partitions screen, telling me to specify a partition for the root file system (mount point "/") min of 2gb
 
Carry on with what?
Top one looks like a recovery partition
Bottom one is probably your Vista partition
If you install it onto the bottom one then yes, it will reformat the drive and delete Vista.
 
.walls said:
If you can't afford to lose (not loose) any of the data, without a backup you should not be re-partitioning the drive - it doesn't matter what tool you use.
Click to expand...

Woops, that was a typo, honest guv ;)

I cant afford to lose the vista install as I have no recovery disk. What I was planning to do was partition in Windows, backing up most important data to the external drive, then trying that. Like I say though, its just the Vista install I cant lose :(

russ0r said:
Carry on with what?
Top one looks like a recovery partition
Bottom one is probably your Vista partition
If you install it onto the bottom one then yes, it will reformat the drive and delete Vista.
Click to expand...

With the install.
 
I've knackered my Windows install once by messing around with Ubuntu, as said you need original Vista install disc, because (most likely) something will go wrong.

You need to create a partition for Ubuntu, ie

Partition 1 - Vista
Partition 2 - Recovery partition
Partition 3 - Ubuntu
Partition 4 - Swap.
 
1) Get ghost (or other imaging software)
2) make image
3) do whatever you want to OS and not worry.

(really any backup solution - but images are most convenient for home use)

badbob is close....... however.... IMHO:

1) Vista (/dev/sda1)
2) Recovery partition (/dev/sda2)
3) Swap (/dev/sda3)
4) / (/dev/sda4)
5) /home (dev/sda5)

cons: need to make more partitions.
pros: seperate [*nix] partitions - makes things easier if (when) you decide to change distros

Although, if there were a drive for vista and a drive for linux, I would go for /boot swap and / partitions on the second drive, install grub (or lilo) on the linux drive then set it to the primary boot drive in bios.
 
Last edited:
Yep, I'd do what .walls has suggested... get a backup tool and image your current Vista drive. Back it up to DVD or another machine if you've got access to one. Personally, I like Acronis True Image, but there are plenty of other alternatives.
 
separate drives cannot be done :(

I shall make an image, I forgot about that to be honest :)
Thanks guys :D
 
Sorry if you think I'm Hijacking the thread - since the OP's question was "sorted", I would like to ask mine instead of creating another thread.

I'll be installing Ubuntu 7.10 (or perhaps the 8.04 Beta), so here's the deal;
The laptop HDD will be completely blank at 100GB (roughly 98GB? available). I'll be booting XP Pro and/or Vista 64bit as well. How shall I install?

Should install XP, Ubuntu before Vista or Ubuntu, XP before Vista if I want to triple boot?

On another note; I assume FAT32 is the only File system that's read / write-able on all 3 OS? Reason I'm asking is I've got 30GB worth of Music and I'm unsure where to put them; I'm thinking a FAT32 partition of 40GB for storing all music so in any of the OS, I can play them via their associated media players?
 
.walls said:
1) Get ghost (or other imaging software)
2) make image
3) do whatever you want to OS and not worry.
Click to expand...

2.5) Test the image to make sure that it does, in fact, work. :D

A two disk setup is best. Windows on one, Linux on the other. If you're very paranoid, you can even disconnect the power to your Windows drive during the Linux install.
 
I installed the 8.04 beta on my Vostro 1500 (160gB hdd) yesterday. I used Wubi to install it on the same NTFS partition as Vista.

Just downloaded the iso, extracted it with WinRAR so I could run the Wubu installer (though you could mount it with Virtual Clone Drive/Daemon Tools et al.) and it was as easy as that. Worked flawlessly for me.
 
I have installed using Wubi for now, until I see if I really like it (I currently do :D), then I will look at partitioning :D
 
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