Laptop installation

[Avraham Hanadari]

On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 11:56 +0200, Nils Kassube wrote:
> Avraham Hanadari wrote:
> > On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 10:49 +0200, Nils Kassube wrote:
> > > Vista comes with a tool to resize partitions. I suggest to use that
> > > tool because Microsoft should know best how to resize NTFS
> > > partitions without data loss. Then it should be no problem to
> > > install Ubuntu to the now free space on the disk.
> >
> > When I last tried to make a partition in a Vista HD a couple of years
> > ago, I discovered that I could only "resize" partitions, but not make
> > them. I have a singel, unpartitioned HD on the laptop right now. I
> > shall try again. Perhaps upgrades have changed the conditions. On the
> > other hand, I have read that the Ubuntu partition manager is very
> > good, and is preferable to the MS one.
> 
> Well, resizing is what people usually want as Vista occupies the entire 
> disk and there should be some space freed for new partitions for 
> Ubuntu. I don't know about what the partition manager does to Vista 
> partitions but I had total failures with 2 XP machines where the NTFS 
> partitions were no longer accessible after resizing them with the 
> (K)Ubuntu installer. Now that was about 2 years ago and the partition 
> manager may have changed to become better. As for an unpartitioned HD, 
> if Vista can't make partitions on that disk, Ubuntu certainly can.
> 
> > The last I read about installing Ubuntu in a dual boot on a Vista
> > machine explained that the installation was inaccessible afterwards
> > because of some booting properties peculiar in Vista. It was
> > explained that special software needed to be installed in Vista
> > "before" the Ubuntu installation. That software somehow enabled
> > access to the GRUB boot loader, or maybe it was LILO.
> 
> OK, I didn't know about that special extra software.
> 
> > Have you had personal experience installing 9.04 in a dual boot on an
> > HP Vista laptop?
> 
> No, I don't have Vista. However a friend of mine has some sort of Vista 
> on a laptop (not HP) and we will probably try to install Jaunty on that 
> machine next month.
> 
> 
> Nils
> 
Nils and Frans,

The article that Frans mentioned was quite explicit. It even mentioned
the extra software I recalled.

I went to the Vista Computer Management / Disk Management. 
Disk properties are: Capacity 111 GB; Used 73.5 GB; Free 38.2 GB
Disk shrink revealed 114472 mb on HD, but 0 mb available for shrinkage.
I guess the swap file is there. At any rate, Im stopped.

Any ideas? I could probably move some stuff elsewhere to free up space,
but would it make any difference if an elastic (and invisible) swap file
is there? 

Avraham