George,

In all probability,
sda1 is a Windows boot partition
sda2 is your C:drive partition
sda3 is the Windows recovery partion
sda4 is the manufacturers utility partition.

Several vendors (HP for one) used this scheme for a time (perhaps at M$ urging) to make it harder for other OS's.

You could come to the Installfest on 8/3 and we can fix it for you.  Or you can do it yourself if you are willing to give one of them up.

Before doing anything else, be sure to create a system image and a bootable repair disk.  Click on the Start button and type "backup" (no quotes).  Select the Backup and Restore option.  You will want to the system image to an external drive and the repair disk to a CD.

That done you can choose what to sacrifice and delete that partition using either WIN7s disk management tool or Gparted from your Ubuntu Live disk.  Once you have only 3 partitions, the Ubuntu installer can put everything in logical partitions it can create within the extended partition it will create.

Larry


On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:16 PM, G Gambill <gwgambill@gmail.com> wrote:

Response to all

Kitepilot, I seem to remember the idea of primary partitions as 'Extended' from my fdisk days of more than 10 years back. There is no doubt an opportunity here (there is no such thing as a problem, we only have opportunities) to refresh my memory.

Matt, it seems that sda3 is the MS recovery partition and I should be able to get by without it.  I have no idea what the sda4 partition is all about but hope to before this adventure is over (Google is your friend).

Matt and Robert, I think I want to stay with Ubuntu and tough my way through it (maximum learning). I do think I need to wait until the next Installfest (Aug 3rd) so someone, knowing what we are doing, can watch over my shoulder as I beat the keys.

Thanks to all.



On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Robert Holtzman <holtzm@cox.net> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 07:56:59AM -0700, Matt Graham wrote:

          .........snip.........
>
> So:  If you're paranoid, make backups of all the partitions.  Then delete sda3
> and sda4 and create a new sda3 which covers everything from the end of sda2 to
> the end of the disk.  Tell your distro's install CD to use sda3 as / .  And
> think about using something other than Ubuntu; Unity is a pain.

I agree that Unity is a pile of poo but that's no reason to switch
distros if he's otherwise happy with Ubuntu. He can always install
another DE, mate, lxde, xfce, etc etc etc.

--
Bob Holtzman
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