ESP dual boot Windows 10

[Liam Proven]

I have re-ordered your post in the hope of clarity.

> Let's say 30GB total for Linux by shrinking the C drive to create free
> space.

Whoa whoa whoe. Not yet, cowboy. Work out what you've _got_ before you
work out what you're going to do with it!

> Volume 1 is Windows PE

Windows PE? That *was* a way to make a Live USB key of Windows:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766093(v=ws.10).aspx

It's not something you find on a hard disk. So, no, you have
mis-identified volume 1.

> Volume 3 for recovery.

But but but...

On 13 December 2016 at 15:49, Thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's no Windows recovery partition.

In other words, you told me that there wasn't one before!

OK, so, now we know we have one. Do you want it?

Many recovery partitions let you write their contents onto a DVD or
something, then you can throw them away. That is what I would advise.

>  It's not a
> problem to install Linux between Volume 0 and Volume 1?

Not as such, but we can do better and make it cleaner.

> Notably, the GUI diskmgr.msc shows this sequence:
>
> Recovery, ESP, C, Recovery

What, now there are _two_ recovery partitions? When there were none a
week ago? These things breed fast! ;-)

> how much for root, home and swap from the approximate total of 30?  (The
> 30GB is flexible, I picked a rather low number.)
>
> There's no system image partition -- just the Windows PE and recovery
> partitions.

Not true. Again you are apparently mis-identifying something. This is
why I said that you are going too fast.

I am focussing on the one you did not mention because it was the main
point of your original question, which was:

On 13 December 2016 at 10:34, thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com> wrote:
> When adding the root, home and swap partitions, however, how does that
> relate to ESP?

That ESP partition is important:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition

What the Ubuntu docs that you quoted mean is that you must leave the
ESP there. It contains variables -- settings -- for your UEFI firmware
and if you damage it then the PC won't boot.

So what we need to focus on are the 2 that you didn't mention:

On 19 December 2016 at 12:22, thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com> wrote:
> Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0
>
> Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
> On computer: BUDDY
>
> DISKPART> list volume
>
>   Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status
> Info
>   ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------
> --------
>   Volume 0     C   Acer         NTFS   Partition    915 GB  Healthy
> Boot

That's Windows itself. We need to keep it but shrink it.

>   Volume 1         Recovery     NTFS   Partition    600 MB  Healthy
> Hidden

That's an emergency copy of enough of Windows to re-install your PC.
If you're switching to Ubuntu you don't really need it. If it was my
computer, I'd back up its contents using the official method (assuming
there was one) then remove it.


>   Volume 2         ESP          FAT32  Partition    300 MB  Healthy
> System

That's the UEFI system partition. Don't delete, move, resize or rename
it. Don't touch it at all.


>   Volume 3         Push Button  NTFS   Partition     15 GB  Healthy
> Hidden

That is something that is not standard and it's fairly big. I think
that probably holds a compressed copy of the OEM instalation of
Windows which the tools in partition #2 can restore.

So boot that emergency environment and see if there is any way to
write its contents to removable media.

Then you need to decide how much space is going where.

Firstly, you need to see how much free space there is on the C drive.
Give it a clean up (use the Disk Clean Up tool, and do both user
files, then run it again, and do system files.) Disable Hibernation.
Disable the swap file if you won't be using Windows much. Google how
to do that.

Then shrink it so that it is about 25% used and 75% free. That should
be enough for Windows to run happily if you need it for emergencies,
e.g. firmware updates.

If, on the other hand, you plan to _use_ Windows, then leave more
space. My Win10 partition on the old laptop I'm typing on is only 50
GiB. I do occasionally use it and that's plenty, but then I also have
a data partiton (64 GiB) with all my stuff on it, shared with Windows.
But I have 160 GiB and you have 1 TiB. You could leave Windows 256 GiB
or so and still have a ton of room.

What I'd then do, after the backup, is:

* Boot Windows

Use Disk Manager to shrink the C partition, either as far as it will
go if you won't be using it, or at least down to a small size if
Ubuntu is going to be your main OS. (E.g. 25% used, 75% free.)

Then I'd boot into my Linux installation media.

If it was me:

I'd remove partitions #1 & #3. I'd create 3 partitions for Linux:

#1 / (i.e. the root partition) 16 GiB ext4. 32 GiB if you expect to
install a _lot_ of extra apps.

#3 /home -- all remaining space, *less* physical RAM + 2 GiB.

#4 swap -- physical RAM + 2GB

This is mainly for hibernation. It is arguably over-sized and Ralf may
complain, but you have a lot of space so you won't miss it.

So the final layout will be something like:

#0 Windows
#1 Linux root
#2 ESP
#3 Linux /home
#4 Linux swap


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Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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