Question

2

Ubuntu installation issues, I've seemingly lost 65GB of hard disk space

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 1419 / 2 Years ago, wed, october 26, 2022, 12:17:25

Sorry for the long read but I tried to be detailed:

Just tonight I went through the steps outlined at the Ubuntu download page, meaning I downloaded the Ubuntu 11.10 ISO and used pendrivelinux in order to make my USB drive bootable. I restart, fix boot order, and we get into the action. My first issue is that this didn't play out like the website said it would: I received no welcome screen like the one shown, just a bunch of code, then the Ubuntu symbol with a list of options under it, I picked install.

At this point I'm supposed to see this image, but instead all I got were the languages and a button to continue. I chose English and continued. The next to steps appeared as they were supposed to but then the 4th step was different. There was no "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7" option as there is in this picture, I only had the last two options. Here I chose, "Something else."

Now when the next dialog box opened, I got very confused and did a Google search and watched some videos on YouTube and I thought I would be OK. I was wrong.

So I'm looking at this dialog box informing me of the various partitions on my hard drive. After Googling and YouTubing, I click on my main partition (that has Windows installed with all my various programs, files, etc.), then click "Change..." This partition has approximately 304GB of space, and I want to give Ubuntu 60GB, so I reduce this partition by 65GB (so I can have 5GB of space for the swap file, which I'm sure is more than enough). I change the "Use as:" drop down to ntfs, then hit "OK". I get warned about being unable to undo this, etc., etc., I hit continue and then it does it. It shrinks my partition.

Then a curious thing happens. When in the video (would have linked the video but the spam filter doesn't allow it, can link to it upon request) and the articles, a new option showed up as "free space," which you could then partition, I simply got an option labeled "unusable," which was allotted 65GB.

After toying with that unusable space for a bit I gave up, I quit installation and restarted to make sure Windows still worked. Everything was fine, except when I went to My Computer it said I had 65GB less of hard drive space then I used to have, which I expected. Now my question to you experts is this:

Is there anything I can do about this? If there is, my priorities are thus:

I would still like to install Ubuntu if possible, any help toward
that would be fantastic.

If that former is not possible, I would
like to try to add this space back to my main partition.

Thank you all so much for you help, it is greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I don't know if this will help any, but my computer is an HP G62 Notebook PC, it has a Pentium Dual-Core CPU, and I have but 3GB of RAM. Hope this information helps. Thanks again!

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

soahan

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 230

Total Questions: 123

Total Answers: 123

Location: Maldives

Member since Tue, Dec 21, 2021

2 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago heathree · Accepted Answer

MBR partitioning scheme, used since the times of MS-DOS, only allows for 4 partitions to exist on a physical device. As a work-around, one of these partitions can be an "extended" partition, which can act as a container for more partitions (the partitions outside of an extended partition are called "primary".

So, if you have 4 primary partitions on your disk - even if you resize one of them you won't be able to use that space.

What you need to do is:

backup data on the last of your partitions

delete it using gparted

create an extended partition

create two (or more) new partitions inside the extended partition, use one of them to install Ubuntu.

(or, alternatively, you can delete some other less important partition and then move other primary partitions around to free up some space - the point is the same, you need to remove one of the primary partitons to be able to create an extended partition. You can then create a partition inside the extended partition and restore the data you copied from the primary partition you deleted... hope this makes sense)

UPDATE: here's the confirmation that HP G62 laptops come with 4 primary partitions already taken. Also there are some suggestions how to fix this.

Here's a thread on ubuntuforums with some screenshots and suggestions.