Not sure what to do!

I'm a newbie to linux - had a play around with Ubuntu before but i've settles for Mint as my final choice for my new laptop.

Hardware configuration is 1 disk split into two partitions C and D (both more or less 100GB) - C is already full with windows and my games and D is empty.

I get to the partition section where i see this, and i'm not sure what to do - i want to install it on the D drive (which is SDA3 ntfs at the moment) but i don't know which options to select. I want linux to be able to take 10-20 gb of the disk but leave the rest accessible in windows if i need it.

Screenshot:

i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/everyonedoesit/mint.jpg

What do imake the "Use as", and do i make the size what i want for linux? or would that resize the whole partition to 10gb. Confuzzled. Thanks guys :-)

(P.S that 15gb of unusable space is what i removed from vista in Disk Management like i read on a guide to do first, but that didn't work. If i can get it installed there, even better. If not i can reallocate to windows)

I would try to use that space. If gparted says it can't use it, delete that partition, then it should become usable again.My mistake-it is a 5th partition, which is why it is marked unusable. I'll have to think a while on this.

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Originally Posted by Hal343

I would try to use that space. If gparted says it can't use it, delete that partition, then it should become usable again.

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I can't delete it from inside the installation partition manager - delete is grayed out. Delete it from Vista then try again?

No-I was slow with realizing that it is a fifth partition. I'm not sure why you have so many parttions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hal343

No-I was slow with realizing that it is a fifth partition. I'm not sure why you have so many parttions.

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No, i would have much prefered my laptop to be just a single partitioned drive, but alas no luck. I have a feeling it might be the backup DVD (it didn't come with a Vista installation disk, preinstalled junk) which i've burned off.

Any suggestions then?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by everyonedoesit

I'm a newbie to linux - had a play around with Ubuntu before but i've settles for Mint as my final choice for my new laptop.

Hardware configuration is 1 disk split into two partitions C and D (both more or less 100GB) - C is already full with windows and my games and D is empty.

I get to the partition section where i see this, and i'm not sure what to do - i want to install it on the D drive (which is SDA3 ntfs at the moment) but i don't know which options to select. I want linux to be able to take 10-20 gb of the disk but leave the rest accessible in windows if i need it.

Screenshot:

i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/everyonedoesit/mint.jpg

What do imake the "Use as", and do i make the size what i want for linux? or would that resize the whole partition to 10gb. Confuzzled. Thanks guys :-)

(P.S that 15gb of unusable space is what i removed from vista in Disk Management like i read on a guide to do first, but that didn't work. If i can get it installed there, even better. If not i can reallocate to windows)

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Hallo, most Distros are LiveCD nowadays.
Start your LiveCD.
Start the program GParted.
With this tool you can partitionate your Harddisk and format and so on.

I recommend to snipp away 1GB or 2 at the end from D and format it as Linux-SWAP.
the rest of D you should delete and make a new extended Partition.
In there you should create various smaller virtual Partitions.
NTFS for Windows-Data and ext3 for your Linux-Partition.
The root-partition should be 5-10GB depending on the distro.

I hope I explained it in away you could understand it (my english isn't really good)

Good luck

I think /dev/sda3 has your disk image of Vista. Is there a way to check that in Vista? /dev/sda4 may be restore points, but I can't be sure. Don't partition anything yest. Either from the live Mint cd or Vista see if you can see what the used portions of /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda4 hold for data. We don't want to destroy anything you might need later.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hal343

I think /dev/sda3 has your disk image of Vista. Is there a way to check that in Vista? /dev/sda4 may be restore points, but I can't be sure. Don't partition anything yest. Either from the live Mint cd or Vista see if you can see what the used portions of /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda4 hold for data. We don't want to destroy anything you might need later.

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Here's a screenshot of my computer management screen in Vista - sorry for the appalling image quality.

i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/everyonedoesit/windows.jpg

Vista is lying about the 5 & 10 meg sections being unused. Gparted shows them as holding data, and I trust it more than any Windows tool.

More on next page!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hal343

Vista is lying about the 5 & 10 meg sections being unused. Gparted shows them as holding data, and I trust it more than any Windows tool.

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Yes i agree, i'm pretty sure one of them is for the backup DVDs but i'm clueless about the other. Where i want to get it really is in the 14.65gb unallocated space but for some reason i can't