0

I'm trying to install Ubuntu (12.10) on a laptop on a 240 GB Intel SSD drive already containing a Windows 7 installation. I have the disk partitioned as follows:

  1. 1500 MB, NTFS, system partition, something that the laptop came with
  2. 198 GB, NTFS, Windows installation partition

These partitions are followed by 23 GB of free space.

The Ubuntu installer, however, is not seeing the free space. Instead what I get in the Installation type dialog, is the following: Partitions aren't shown exactly as they are

I've already tried creating an unformatted primary partition in the free space (using Windows, obviously) but doing that didn't change the situation in any way.

Should I alter the partitions in some way in order to make the free space accessible to the Ubuntu installer or am I missing something else here?

Kallja
  • 101

1 Answers1

0

You've almost certainly got a Windows Logical Disk Manager (LDM; aka "dynamic disks") setup. This is a Windows-specific system that's similar in some ways to the Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) system. Unfortunately, it's difficult (perhaps impossible) to install Linux on a disk that uses LDM.

Fortunately, it is possible to convert back from an LDM to a standard setup, but you'll need to use third-party utilities. EaseUS Partition Master and Partition Wizard are both supposed to be able to do this, IIRC. (Double-check this, though; my memory may be faulty, and I've never used either tool myself.) I recommend doing a complete backup before using either tool, since partitioning operations like this are inherently risky.

Rod Smith
  • 45,120
  • 7
  • 66
  • 108