Partitioning safely help needed

[Jon13w]

As of now I have Ubuntu and Windows 7 installed with a dual boot. I installed Ubuntu through partitions of some sort but I have no idea what im dealing with now or how i got through it safely the first time. I want to add mint to both my operating systems so i can use it too. I will have attached a screenshot of all the information i have so far. If you dont mind, I would prefer to have some background what im doing or where some bits of information came from so I can have a better understanding of partitions in case im messing with them more in the future. Id also like to know how to uninstall mint or ubuntu if i choose to, considering I have nothing important on either OS that I would lose.
Thanks a lot, I look forward to playing around with mint some more. I currently have mint booting from a dvd, but I would like to avoid that.
edit: gimme a minute to get the screenshot

let me know if that breaks any image rules, Ill try to fix it.

edit2: im using a 64 bit if that makes any difference. If you need any more info im happy to go find it.

[wayne128]

interesting partition.. unusual too.

did you install ubuntu by wubi?

do you have win7 original CD?

save you win7 stuff on external USB drive, DVD etc..
save your important files from ubuntu to external USB drive, DVD etc..

when you are very sure that even hard disk is wiped out and you can get back to your win7 OS, and all data,,,,, then you are ready to play with any partition work..

so please be sure get ready on all those back up first.

[wayne128]

and when you are ready...

just do a few commands on terminal and post their results

1. boot to Mint DVD, run live
2. open a terminal type the below commands
3. sudo fdisk -l
4. sudo parted -l print

[Jon13w]

interesting partition.. unusual too.

did you install ubuntu by wubi?

do you have win7 original CD?

save you win7 stuff on external USB drive, DVD etc..
save your important files from ubuntu to external USB drive, DVD etc..

when you are very sure that even hard disk is wiped out and you can get back to your win7 OS, and all data,,,,, then you are ready to play with any partition work..

so please be sure get ready on all those back up first.

i installed ubuntu by a CD that i burned, 32-bit. I did not do the simple option where you install it as a windows application. i did something with partitions, although i have no idea what i did specifically.

I am not aware of having a Win7 CD, do laptops usually come with one?

and i have all my important files backed up.

[Jon13w]

i did what you said.

Code: Select all

mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc6a0663b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      411647      204800    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          411648   509833836   254711094+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       509835262   945829887   217997313    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4       945829888   976773167    15471640   12  Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda5       881913856   945829887    31958016    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       509835264   865273855   177719296   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       865275904   881903615     8313856   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order
mint@mint ~ $ sudo parted -l print
Model: ATA ST9500420AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  211MB  210MB   primary   ntfs            boot
 2      211MB   261GB  261GB   primary   ntfs
 3      261GB   484GB  223GB   extended                  lba
 6      261GB   443GB  182GB   logical   ext4
 7      443GB   452GB  8513MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)
 5      452GB   484GB  32.7GB  logical   ntfs
 4      484GB   500GB  15.8GB  primary   ntfs            diag


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label                                  

mint@mint ~ $ 

[wayne128]

Earlier when win7 was introduced, desktop were shipped with the original Win7 CD.
I got mine then.
Later on, they stopped shipping any Win CD, it cost a lots to buy original CD

If you have not burn the recovery DVD, do it now.
Should any hard disk crash or corrupt till it become unbootable or unrepairable, you must have the 3 DVDs to install win7 and one DVD to install driver.

Coming back to partitioning..
what actually you want to do? Just install Mint and become triple boot? or something else?

first thing to learn is to use gparted, or GParted,
you have it in ubuntu as well as Mint Live DVD, navigate to gparted, run it, and take a snapshot image of your hard disk , then post here.

[Jon13w]

Earlier when win7 was introduced, desktop were shipped with the original Win7 CD.
I got mine then.
Later on, they stopped shipping any Win CD, it cost a lots to buy original CD

If you have not burn the recovery DVD, do it now.
Should any hard disk crash or corrupt till it become unbootable or unrepairable, you must have the 3 DVDs to install win7 and one DVD to install driver.

Coming back to partitioning..
what actually you want to do? Just install Mint and become triple boot? or something else?

first thing to learn is to use gparted, or GParted,
you have it in ubuntu as well as Mint Live DVD, navigate to gparted, run it, and take a snapshot image of your hard disk , then post here.

I just remembered i got my laptop refurbished, so i wouldnt have one.
what is a recovery dvd?
and this is gparted.


thanks a lot for helping me. Very useful, ive been browsing for like an hour and a half trying to figure out exactly what was happening. I shouldve come to the forum first.

[wayne128]

what is a recovery dvd?

please read here,
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 08#p523479

get a recovery disk while it is still available.. win7 and vista are different, google and hopefully get to a place to get free version.. else you need to pay.

[Jon13w]

what is a recovery dvd?

please read here,
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 08#p523479

get a recovery disk while it is still available.. win7 and vista are different, google and hopefully get to a place to get free version.. else you need to pay.

i have a recovery mode option in my boot menu... is that the same?

[wayne128]

i have a recovery mode option in my boot menu... is that the same?

No

you need either an original Win7 CD ( to reinstall win7)
or a recovery CD, to repair win7 if it becomes unbootable. recovery CD cannot reinstall win OS.

back to your current partition,
it is easier for you to
1 shrink sda6 ( just use resize within gparted) by some 10-20G
2 create a new partition that take this 10-20G, format it with ext4
it will become assigned with /dev/sda8 by gparted
3 install a new Linux OS on /dev/sda8

[Jon13w]

i have a recovery mode option in my boot menu... is that the same?

No

you need either an original Win7 CD ( to reinstall win7)
or a recovery CD, to repair win7 if it becomes unbootable. recovery CD cannot reinstall win OS.

back to your current partition,
it is easier for you to
1 shrink sda6 ( just use resize within gparted) by some 10-20G
2 create a new partition that take this 10-20G, format it with ext4
it will become assigned with /dev/sda8 by gparted
3 install a new Linux OS on /dev/sda8

thanks a lot. ill try it right now.

[Jon13w]

so i have the unused partition in ext4...
what does this mean?

[wayne128]

when installer come to this screen, partition menu, you need to select partition and mount as /

you click on /dev/sda8, it should pop up a window.
you then need to click and mount as /
click also to format as ext4

when you have done it, click next or something equivalent ( cannot remember , sorry)
the earlier error message should not appear,
installer should proceed..

[Jon13w]

when installer come to this screen, partition menu, you need to select partition and mount as /

you click on /dev/sda8, it should pop up a window.
you then need to click and mount as /
click also to format as ext4

when you have done it, click next or something equivalent ( cannot remember , sorry)
the earlier error message should not appear,
installer should proceed..

what do i put in the mount point box? edit: nevermind i saw what you put. im useless.