Help with Dual Boot Question

[Hooly]

Hey all,

Hopefully someone here can help me out with this. I have an 80 gig HDD. I have a 20 gig partition for windows, a 40 gig partition for programs and storage and a non-formatted remainder. I want to install ubuntu on the empty partition but when I went to do that, the partition editor in ubuntu says that my second partition (programs and storage) is not primary. So I can't install linux on the empty partition. So I guess I need to reformat the storage partition and make it primary. Is this possible using the windows disk? I'm don't remember an option to make a partition primary or not. Anyone know?

Also, I thought I would take an image of the storage partition before I reformat it. Once I change it to primary, can I simply apply that image to it and have it still work properly? I would be using Acronis TrueImage.

Thanks all

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

[Hooly]

18 views, no response?

/bump

[melshaw]

Well I guess I can take a crack at it. I do believe you are only allowed one primary partition. Since you are talking about partitions I am going to assume that you are using a basic disk. Here is what I would do. I would reformat the drive and split it into 2 ntfs partitons. Convert from basic disk to dynamic disks. I would then split the partitions into logical drives. You can install windows on C drive and your apps amd such on F drive or whatever and still have them on the same "primary" partiton. Also, If you use a seperate drive for apps and files then 20 gigs for windows is a waste of space. The reccomended size for windows is like 2 gigs.
I would make c drive like 5 gigs to allow for downloads and updates and whatnot. make a seperate logical drive for apps and files on the same partition. I hope I helped