How dangerous is partitioning?

Below is a long story to the question in the title.  If you wish, you can simply answer the title question with out reading my long ass explination or you can do both, the choice remains yours.

Long story - I downloaded, burned and ran the disk to get Ubuntu and all that good stuff.  When it came time to install it, I came across 4 different ways to partition my HD: Resize it and use the extra space created, erase everything, use largest continous free space and partition manually.  First, I tried the third option and it told me it could not be performed and if I continued it would wipe my HD.  Obviously I did not want that, so I moved on to the resizing option.  I tried to resize 20 GB and it told me that was not enough room, so I tried 25 GB, and it froze.  Finally, I tried to do it manually.  I left about 5 extra GB along with the space already used.  Therotically this should work, but when I hit 'Finish' it told me that this could be potentially dangerous and that I need to back up anything important, but as I don't have any means to back up 20 GB, it is either all or nothing.  So, back to my question - how much of a chance does this have of erasing everything?

Well, I don't really have any important files, just 4 seasons of Red vs Blue and like 10 GB of music that I really don't want to download again.

Partitioning shouldn't kill all your data, but it could. You should be backing up your data anyway!! A DVD burner is down to under $50. Or you can get big hard drives for cheap, and a USB dock to plug it in to the PC...if your HDD tanked, you wouldn't have the option.

So I take it you want to keep your windows partition and dual boot? I dual boot, but I have windows on one hard drive and ubuntu on another. If you just want to completely switch, back up what you want on cd's and just completely erase your windows partition. Linux is different than windows and takes some getting used to. You might want to read this (on partitioning) and this (linux vs. windows)

If you need any help with Ubuntu, I recommend ubuntuforums.org. There are some knowledgeable people when it comes to Linux on this forum too.

stop being a prude and just repartition the whole drive. then install windows on one partition and linux on the other.

of course, save any stuff you want to keep on a different drive or some other media.

High Voltage wrote: stop being a prude and just repartition the whole drive. then install windows on one partition and linux on the other. of course, save any stuff you want to keep on a different drive or some other media.

I have no other drive though, just my main C drive and no other media device large enough to hold 10 GB of music and videos.

BARREL BREAK wrote: Yeah, a fresh windows install will be nice anyway, all squeaky clean and clutter free.

Well, I just got it at the end of May, so it basically is squeaky clean.


Edited by Apotheosis - 24 July 2006 at 7:02pm

When did linux all of the sudden get so popular?  Anyway, I used it (like MBro) before it was popular.

If you want to partition without wiping it, one thing to remember to do is a defrag- it should cluster all the data towards one part. It'll help, anyway...

WGP guy2 wrote: When did linux all of the sudden get so popular?  Anyway, I used it (like MBro) before it was popular.

So you were using it back in the 90's when only leet computer programmers used it? There will always be someone who has used/done something before you. Just be happy that more and more people are using Linux. It's not like it's some special club that doesn't allow new memebers. Linux is getting more popular by the day. Deal with it. And stop acting like you were the first person to ever run Linux. I'm pretty sure that Linus Torvalds is the only person that can claim that.

The reason I started using Linux was because I was tired of being limited to the number of times I could install XP using the same cd key, and because I felt Windows was controlling me, instead of me being able to control my OS. I didn't do it because it was "cool" or anything like that. I just was interested in it and wanted a change. Now I hardly ever use Windows. I'm sure many people feel the same way.


Edited by Benjichang - 25 July 2006 at 12:40am