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When trying to create a dual boot (windows and ubuntu) I ran in some trouble. Because I do already have 4 partitions, the 5th one is unusable for ubuntu to install. Now I'm really hesitating which one could be deleted or not. I have the following partitions:

device    type   size     used      system
/dev/sda1 ntfs   104mb    25mb      Windows 7(loader)
/dev/sda2 ntfs   877973mb 195685mb  
unusable         56624mb    an
/dev/sda3 ntfs   64424mb  24054mb
/dev/sda4 ntfs   1065mb   218mb     Windows Recovery Environment(loader)

As you can see, sda2 is my main partition, and sda 3 is my driver partition.

Can I safely remove sda1 or sda4 partition? I'm not sure what the "loader" is supposed to do.

John S Gruber
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user2403357
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2 Answers2

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If you can merge the contents of your drivers partition onto your main Windows partition and get can confidently remove it you can delete that partition and add extended partitions using its space and the contiguous unused space.

At that point if you want to create an Ubuntu partition as well as create a new Windows driver extended NTFS partition you can.

Having four primary partitions is a dead-end it's best to avoid.

If your computer and Windows can deal with it you may also be able to convert the disk to GPT format--it doesn't differentiate between primary and extended partitions and can have a large number of partitions. Both Windows and your BIOS would have to support that move.

I'm confused by one of your comments. You mention having allocated space for the Windows installer already. If I understand correctly and that's an NTFS partitions on the list never used you could delete it, boot from a DVD or USB Ubuntu installer, and then let the Ubuntu installer handle putting Ubuntu into an extended partition (not a primary one). Ubuntu doesn't generally install on an NTFS partition, using a different file system like Ext4. You don't need to create a partition for the Ubuntu installer itself. You can boot an Ubuntu install DVD and the software on it will do the formatting you need.

Unless you are letting the Ubuntu installer do all the formatting automatically you will have to choose "Custom" for the install type.

In any case you would have to be careful about backing up and having a way to use the backup if there is a problem.

John S Gruber
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My guess is that the Windows and Linux programs are not properly compatible. I suggest to revoke the changes you've made in Win and start the installer again. Then use the Ubuntu program to shrink /sda2 again.

Hope that'll work, good luck!

Spielkalb
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