How to Install Linux on unallocated partition

Question

I have a disk 0 , which has 5 partitions.

How should I convert the unallocated to ext4 partitions and then install ubuntu on it ?

I used Ubuntu tool gparted, but it does not help me to convert this unallocated partition.

Can someone please guide me?

Answer 1

Gparted is the tool to do this. If it does not work, it means you are doing something wrong. For instance, the GParted manual explicitly states:

Partition operations such as delete, move, copy, format, check, label, and often resize require the partition to be unmounted.

This is why GParted is most often used from a live Linux distro, like the Ubuntu installation stick. You can boot from that, choose Try Ubuntu without installing it, start GParted and then act on your disk.

If this fails, then please provide error messages for troubleshooting.

Answer 2

First, "unallocated partition" is an oxymoron. By definition, a partition is allocated disk space. Unallocated disk space is unpartitioned.

This point is critical because I suspect you may be running into the 4-partition limit of the Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning system. MBR supports a maximum of four (primary) partitions. To create more partitions under MBR, one of the primary partitions must become a placeholder, known as an extended partition. You can create as many logical partitions inside the extended partition as you want. This is an ugly hack that's been with us since the 1980s, but people who don't deal with partitioning on a daily basis still get tripped up by it. Fortunately, MBR is going the way of the Dodo, but that's another story....

If I'm right, your disk has four primary partitions and some unallocated space, so of course you can't create new partitions in that unallocated space. This configuration is common on computers that shipped with Windows 7; manufacturers would max out the partition table on the MBR, which makes it difficult to install more OSes. There are solutions, though, and other questions and answers here have covered the topic, such as:

• convert primary partitions to logicals without losing data
• Which partition can I delete so that I can install Ubuntu?
• Ran out of primary partitions, want to install another system

If you don't think this is your problem or if you're puzzled by those questions and answers, you'll have to post more information, such as a screen shot of GParted or the output of sudo parted -l in the Ubuntu live CD's Terminal window.