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    Help Needed with Partitioning the HDD for Dual Boot

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Leica01, Dec 13, 2010.

  1. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    I need some help with partioning the HDD.

    I would like to make the XPS a dual-boot system - Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

    I wanted to partition / shrink the hard drive and allocate the total available space of 586 GB in the following way:
    Windows OS = 100 GB
    Ubuntu = 25Gb
    Rest of the Disk = for files

    But unfortunately the HDD C: volume will not shrink beyond 280GB and retain 306GB for Windows OS. [Please check the screenshot].

    How do I make Windows to shrink and partiion the HDD in the above fashion?
     

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    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
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  2. snarebear

    snarebear Newbie

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    I would suggest running GParted, which should be on the LiveCD for Ubuntu, to partition your drives. GParted might give you more freedom in managing your partitions. Then install Windows and then Ubuntu in that order. Otherwise, Windows would replace the boot manager and you would be unable to boot into Ubuntu.
     
    snarebear, Dec 13, 2010
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  3. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    Does it mean re-formatting the whole drive, and then again install everything?

    So, Microsoft had to become a PITA after all ?
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
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  4. tejagamer

    tejagamer Notebook Geek

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    I used Acronis Disk Director and could shrink C to 90GB
    Try using that. Its great
     
    tejagamer, Dec 13, 2010
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  5. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    That's a good news. Thanks a lot.

    I don't need to reinstall Windows OS, drivers etc , right?
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
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  6. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    Okay, I have used Acronis Disk Director 11 to create the partitions. It happily did what I wanted it to do.

    But now the main problem: in the given MBR system, Acronis DD allows 3 Primary and an unlimited number of Logical drives.

    The Dell XPS came pre-installed with " Local volume" [containing Dell Utility], " Recovery" drives, along with C: [OS] drive - these 3 drives are all Primary.

    Therefore, I can no longer convert the 25GB (Logical) space reserved for installing Ubuntu into a Primary one, and an OS can only be installed on a Primary drive. :(

    How does one solve this problem?
    Can I convert the "Local Volume" into a Logical drive so that I can convert the Ubuntu space into a Primary one ?
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
    #6
  7. JKleiss

    JKleiss Notebook Evangelist

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    get rid of the dell utility and recovery drivers
     
    JKleiss, Dec 13, 2010
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