I am trying to install Ubuntu 11.10 alongside Windows XP. When I am prompted where I want to install Ubuntu, the three options to select from are:

1. Install Ubuntu alongside Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition


2. Overwrite Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Ubuntu


3. Something else

When I selection option 1, by default Ubuntu Installer selects the 1TB external hard drive that I have connected to the computer. There appears to be an option to select another hard drive, however, I cannot use it to change to another drive. In other words, the drop down list does not work.

What I want to be able to do is to install Ubuntu on another (internal) 320GB hard drive that I have purchased for this very reason. My problem here is that I am not certain how to partition it for Ubuntu using option 3. I know that I will require a / partition and a /boot partition, however, I am not sure how much to allocate to each. Furthermore, there appears to be more file systems to select from. Which one do I use for each partition I create? Also, the intended target drive is currently formatted with NTFS. Do I need to manually delete and re-create the partition to ext2 before I am able to install Ubuntu?

FYI - My current configuration is as follows:

/dev/sda

  /dev/sda1   fat16    32MB

  /dev/sda2   ntfs    160GB

/dev/sdb

  /dev/sdb1   ntfs    320GB

/dev/sdc

  /dev/sdc5   fat32  1000GB

Note that the /dev/sda1 is the partition reserved for EISA (whatever that is), /dev/sda2 is the partition that contains the Windows XP Home Edition, /dev/sdb1 is the new internal hard drive that I intend to install Ubuntu, and /dev/sdc5 is the external drive which is used as a backup drive only. For some reason, Windows XP uses this external drive to store temporary/configuration files for software that is installed on /dev/sd2.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.