how to install linux alongside windows 7

To achieve this, you will invoke the disk management utility as shown: This is the partition where Debian will be installed during the installation process. To start off, you need to create a free partition on your hard drive. Step 1: Create a free partition on your hard drive

A fast and stable internet connection ( For installation updates & third party applications)Īdditionally, it worth paying attention to how your system boots (UEFI or Legacy) and ensure both the operating systems boot using the same boot mode.(You can re-enable them afterwards.)Īs Mitch says, it's advisable to ensure all backups of documents and other important files are current, before dynamically resizing a partition (no matter how you do it). So you may need to disable hibernation, and even disable swap (i.e., the page file), in order to make this succeed. However, system files marked immovable still usually will not be moved in this way.

It will schedule the operation for when the system is shut down, so that even files that are in use when the system is running can be moved. Then you can use Disk Management to attempt to shrink your Windows partition. (Alternatively, enter diskmgmt.msc into the text box in the Start Menu and press enter.) To do this, right click My Computer (sometimes just Computer) on the desktop or Start Menu in Windows and click Manage. Since you're running Windows 7 (this also applies to Windows Vista, and to the corresponding Server versions, and will apply to Windows 8 as well), you can try to shrink the Windows partition using Windows, and then try again to install Ubuntu.

The drive has been formatted as a 'Windows Dynamic Disk' - Ubuntu can not be installed on a Dynamic Disk, you will need to convert the drive to a Basic Disk.

The Windows partition cannot be shrunk because of immovable files near the boundary.

The Windows partition cannot be shrunk because the files in it are too badly fragmented, preventing them from being constrained to exist only within the new boundaries.

The Windows partition is too full to be shrunk.

The Windows partition is damaged, and should be fixed with chkdsk in Windows.

(Perhaps there was a power failure, or it bluescreened last time it ran?)

Windows was hibernated rather then shut down.

This sometimes happens, and possible causes include: In your case, that option did not appear. Usually, Ubuntu's installer gives you the option to shrink your Windows partition and install alongside it.

How to install linux alongside windows 7