Gaming Partitioning (Linux)

[nicman000]

I'm looking into installing a linux distro (specifically, ubuntu) and I was wondering something about partitioning.

Here's how my hard drives set up.

 

[Scorpei]

Depens, as long as you don't wreck your bootloader you should be able to (you can without problems but the problem being that you probably want to boot Windows still). Or you have to install a new bootloader of course.

Probably you can't fully delete the linux partition (swap should be fine though) as you would still need some files in /boot for GRUB (assuming you use that as your bootloader) to work properly. Those files are very small though so you could delete all but those files and then resize the linux partition.

But eum, what's with 2 recov partitions?

 

[KDH]

Yes, you'll have to use something like GParted live CD though, since it's not possible (or at least very risky) to alter the size of an active partition.

EDIT: To address Scorpei's bootloader concerns you'll need you use the OEM Windows Installation disc that came with your computer. If you don't have one you'll need to borrow or *otherwise* obtain a retail copy of the Vista Installation media of the same version installed on your laptop to access the recovery console (or whatever it's called in Vista).

Or just use this command from GParted live's terminal:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/xxx bs=512 count=1

where '/dev/xxx' is whatever you see in the top left corner of the GParted program.

 

[nicman000]

So I would have to repair the windows bootloader first?
Or move GRUB to the windows partition?

The recovery partitions came with, it confuses me too.
I used a ubuntu live CD to do the partitioning so I'm fine for that.
I also have a Norton Ghost 14.0 recovery disk to repair the boot.ini if I have to.