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I'm just confused. I was a Windows user pretty much all my life. But now I want to switch to Linux for good. I have a 1 TB hard-drive attached to my laptop. As you know, in windows, the total hard-drive storage is divided into a couple of drives(i.e. Drive:C, Drive:D, Drive:E etc.). Usually, Windows is stored in Drive:C. My question is if I choose the Erase disk and install Ubuntu/ubuntu-derivatives option, will it erase the data on the other drives such as Drive:D/Drive:E, or will it just erase the drives where windows/any other OS is installed and keeping the data on other drives safe ?

wjandrea
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Chrollo_Rifat
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4 Answers4

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Only Windows confusingly calls partitions "drives". Everyone else calls partitions "partitions", and disks/drives "disks".

The erase disk option uses the term "disk" in the non-Windows sense. Everything on that physical storage device (disk, SSD) will be erased, including all partitions regardless of what they are called.

  • If "D:" is another partition on the same physical storage device (disk, ssd), it will be erased.
  • If "D:" is on a separate physical storage device, it won't be touched.
user535733
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8

Other people have explained 'drive' and 'partition' in the Linux context. Anyway, "Erase disk and install Ubuntu” removes the old partition table and creates a new one. This means that the opeating system sees the memory locations as empty in the whole physical device.

But the memory cells are still containing the data that were written before (in your case while it was still formatted by Windows). It is still possible (but a lot of hard work) to recover some of these data with special tools, e.g. PhotoRec.

If you want to make it impossible to recover the previous data, you can

  • overwrite the whole drive with zeros or some random data, or
  • use a built-in tool in the drive to remap the links between logical memory locations and physical locations (which works like encrypting without offering a key).

Removing the old partition table and creating a new one is usually good enough, at least for personal use.

You can find more details at this link.

sudodus
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You can boot into a "live" environment from an Ubuntu USB/DVD and use GParted to resize your hard drive and make room for your Ubuntu installation. It can get messy for those new to doing this so ensure you have a backup of what you want to keep. There is plenty of instruction on the net as to how to go about this.

Coconutdog
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If your storage device that you want to install linux on does in fact have more than one partition i.e. Drive D: and possibly Drive E: In Windows ,transfer all your personal data that you want to save that is on the Drive C: to one of these other drives. If you are installing Ubuntu or an Ubuntu flavour,choose "something else" in the installer, a partition manager will open and you can install to the partition you wish. N.B. the partitions in the linux partition manager will not be named in the windows fashion,so you will have to carefully identify which one is C: You can usually do this by noting the sizes of the "drives" and the free space in them ,in Windows, and then comparing these values in the linux partition manager (Gparted) If you do this carefully ,the two other partitions will remain untouched. Backups are always advisable.

Paul Girardin
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