Starting out with Linux, a little guidance needed!

I'm looking to install Kubuntu 7.04 (which I am currently downloading and I'm going to burn to a disc) onto my notebook so that I have the option to use either Vista or Kubuntu. My HDD was seperated using a Samsung utility that came with the notebook to split the HDD into Disk C and Disk E which I presume are two different partitions. Would I be able to install Kubuntu onto Disk E without wiping or affecting the data on Disk C? I'm rather worried about this as I'm not too keen to have to go through the process of putting Vista back onto the laptop using system recovery software.

If there is anything else that I should be aware of please let me know!

Thank you for your time and assistance.

 

As long as the second partition doesn't contain recovery data or anything and you choose the correct partition during the Kubuntu installer you should be fine. The Vista partition will be okay.

 

I'm pretty certain that I have another hidden parition that contains recovery information as when I first booted the notebook it mentioned it was doing this. If the partition is hidden, do I have anyway of checking this?

MY HDD is 100GB yet my C partition is 58.1GB and my E partition (where I want to install Kubuntu) is 25GB. I would hope that the missing 15GB or so is being used in some way for recovery info. Checking my E partition using Windows it shows no data in it. Am I ok to go ahead?

Thank you for the reassurance so far, I just want to be extra certain!

 

Sorry for posting again, I've booted Kubuntu via disk and have chosen to go ahead with the install. When asking about preparing partitions I chose not to go ahead with the guided setup (that would use my entire disk) but instead chose manual. I've now been given three options as to the partition I use sda 1 (which appears to be either my recovery partition or the partition Samsung use for AVStationNow), sda 2 which appears to be the partition I use for Vista and sda 3 which looks like my blank partition. If I go ahead and choose to install in sda 3 (any data in there won't be needed anyway), will the other partitions be affected?

Edit: I've gotten over my fear of the partitioning and I created a swap file however after I hit "Next" I get an error message saying no root file is defined and I'm utterly clueless as how to solve this problem since I have no idea how I would go about making a root file (the guide I was using did not illuminate to this matter and I couldn't find any info googling). I'm sure this is a very simple problem to solve yet I feel my tiredness is starting to get to me. Any guidelines as how to solve (this likely ridiculously easy) problem would be very much appreciated!

 

When partitioning, you also need to specify the mount point for Kubuntu to use.

You should (if possible, I havent seen the Kubuntu installer in a long time) be able to set sda3 to / . The forward slash is root, meaning your system would be installed on that partition.

 

I was thinking it might be something as simple as that! Thank you for the info! Should I specify sda3 as an ntfs file format with the name / ? I do have a rough idea of what to do now so I'll give it a blast tomorrow.

Thanks again!

 

For Kubuntu, the / partition should be made ext3.

And remember, when it comes to Linux, there are (usually) no stupid questions. Don't worry, yours wasn't stupid.

 

No, you do not want to use NTFS. Linux uses a file format known as ext3. You will need to reformat the sda3 partition to the ext3 file system.

 

Ok, thanks for keeping me in check! Sounds like I was getting things wrong since I was thinking Kubuntu would use NTFS.