Installing 10.04 on top of an older version with dual boot

[Moneer81]

Hello,

I admit that I am a bit confused on how to proceed with this.

I currently have an older version of Ubuntu (6 something) and windows vista and I have dual booting. I am trying to install 10.04 on top of the older Ubuntu and I want to keep the Windows partition. Last time I tried, I completely screwed up...

I have multiple partitions now with a bunch of smaller ones that got created by mistake. I would like to re-size my partitions to have 1 main windows partition, 1 linux partition and 1 swap file partition. My HD is 160GB and I would ideally like to have the Ubuntu and Windows partitions roughly the same size.

I included some screenshots of the install process and also a screenshot of my partitions.

[oz]

I have multiple partitions now with a bunch of smaller ones that got created by mistake. I would like to re-size my partitions to have 1 main windows partition, 1 linux partition and 1 swap file partition. My HD is 160GB and I would ideally like to have the Ubuntu and Windows partitions roughly the same size.

In my opinion, the easiest way to expand, shrink, merge, and move partitions around on your drive is to use gparted from a liveCD environment such as that of the Ubuntu LiveCD, or my own personal favorite, the Parted Magic LiveCD. It will give you a good graphical representation of how your partitions are laid out, and it's very simple to use. Once you get the partitions the way you want them, direct the Ubuntu installer to put the new Ubuntu system on the partitions that currently hold Ubuntu and SWAP, and don't allow it to do anything with the Windows partition.

While it probably won't happen, there is always a chance for data loss when you manipulate partitions, so be sure to make backups if you have anything on the hard disk that you must not lose.