Multiboot win 7 ubuntu mate and kali not installing?

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hi all this is my first time using grub and I am hitting a problem. I can’t seem to install ubuntu in the manner I “think” I should AND added to that I get unusable space. Here’s what I am doing could someone tell me what I am doing wrong.

my hard drive is 320gb I set up a win 7 partition of 100 gb and loaded win 7 which works win 7 grabbed a 100mb chunk for its recovery use so the layout looks like this

ntfs 100mb win 7 recovery ntfs 97.66gb win 7 boot 200gb unallocated

SO I put the ubuntu 15.10 disk and boot. I select install ubuntu I have a way I like to install ubuntu so I select the unallocated part of the drive and create a primary partition of 100gb. NOW I want to allocate 32000 mb to /root 2048mb to swap and the remaining 64000 mb to userdata BUT when I try this /root is fine swap “seems” to go well BUT then the rest of the drive space is now UNUSABLE??? so I cancelled the whole thing because this makes no sense to me. I thought I had created a primary partition out of PART of the unallocated space leaving 100gb to install kali .

Where is my thinking going wrong please?

#2

Sounds like you hit the primary partition limit of four. If so, you need to use three primary partitions and one extended partition.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PartitioningSchemes#Partitioning_Scheme_for_Multiple_systems

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#3

HMMM
when you install windoze 7 it automatically creates two primary partitions. One for the OS and the other for some “recovery” zone. I “think” what you are very kindly pointing out is that I can have win 7 ( taking two primary partitions) THEN in the unallocated space create one more primary for Ubuntu mate ( the machine is an IBM thinkpad t420 with embedded intel graphics) and ONE more partition but this time extended, So when I want to install Kali can I do so on a non primary partition and have it show up in the boot sequence like the other os’s?

thanks for you great link by the way

#4

Ubuntu can be installed inside a extended partition, leaving you a extra primary.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/PartitioningBasics#Primary_Partition_Rules_and_Conventions

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/OperatingSystemsAndPartitions

2 Likes
#5

thanks v3xx

GREAT support and thank you. I have plenty to get on with now thanks to you.
have an excellent night
theakson

#6

Let us know how it goes

#7

See the following for future reference if you like!:

#8

Thanks to all for the links SO based on my reading I understand that I am limited to 4 partitions so my cunning plan of win7 linux and kali would not fly as win7 take 2 part and linux 2 part ( os swap)

SO I decided to got for win7 install then the rest as an extended partition with 4 logical drives BUT I am not given the drop down in ubuntu 15.1 (downloaded from Ubuntu ) for extended partition. I have primary and logical as radio buttons but NO extended partition. Here is the existing disk layout

/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 ntfs 100mb win 7 boot stuff
/dev/sda2 ntfs 100GB win 7 os
freespace 215109mb

if it matters the drive is a hitachi ht572503 320gb

what am I doing wrong

#9

Hi,

look at my partition layout, the big blue box (/dev/sda3) is the extended partition with 5 Linux partitions in it, did you look at the partition guide I posted earlier?:

-dev-sda - GParted (as superuser)_002.jpg1920×1022 265 KB

#10

Hey Wolfman
yep read it all and that’s how I arrived at the need for an extended partition. My problem is that when I boot using the ubuntu 15.1 iso and set up the partitions manually there is NO drop down just radio buttons with primary and logical SO no option for extended partition for me to put the logical in. Your links were for gparted not the ubuntu boot dvd install.

#11

Hi theakson

Maybe looking at it another way would help clear this up.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html#mozTocId801746

Your HDD must be unmounted in order to partition it. You need to use the Mate live DVD, gparted is on it.

2 Likes
#12

hey there v3xx

thanks for the heads up and the link, the splendid wolfman already pointed me at gparted and I found a copy on a dvd I had from a mag. SO all “seems” to be well. I followed wolfmans link and set up an extented partition in the unallocated space. Then I added a few logical partitions to it as ext4 and one linux swap. I then rebooted using the ubuntu 15.1 dvd and installed on one of the logical drives. It “seems” to have gone well and I am am just testing out the pos called windoze to make sure I still have it ( I need it for my broker software)

thanks for all your help and sorry to be so dense

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#13

Sounds like your on the right track. So maybe your not so dense :clap:

#14

Oh yes I am :slight_smile: I only found the track because you and wolfman led me by the hand and pointed at the track saying “maybe THIS is what you are looking for HINT HINT!!!”

thanks for all your help, I now seem to have win 7 ubuntu and kali all running on the machine.

2 Likes
#15

Hi @theakson & @anon42388993,

glad to hear it is solved, @anon42388993 made a very good point about the system being unmounted which is is something I neglected to put in the partition guide, I will remedy that so it helps clear things up for other users!. :smiley:

Please mark the thread as solved so it helps others, @anon42388993’s is the true problem solver here I would say!. :smiley:

#16

hi @wolfman and @anon42388993
yep seems to be all better now thanks to a great team effort and a big thanks to all. @anon42388993 certainly is an excellent native guide :slight_smile: I didn’t do anything to unmount the drive to resolve this so somewhere along the line gparted must have done this for me. Thanks to all

2 Likes
#17

@wolfman @anon42388993 Great support guys! Not just in this topic either. Thanks for helping out, I really appreciate it :slight_smile:️

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#18

And we appreciate you and the other Ubuntu Mate devs @Wimpy!. :smiley: :thumbsup:

1 Like