Partitioning drives before installing Loki

Question

I'm new to the world of Linux though I was really impressed by Elementary OS and I want to install it on my Lenovo y580 laptop dual booting it with windows 10. I have two disks on it, SSD where Windows is installed and HDD. The problem is, I don't want Elementary to be installed on my SSD. How would you suggest to partition my drives to achieve that?

This is what Disk Management on Windows is showing:

Answer 1

1. Create Loki Live-USB
2. Boot Elementary from that USB.
3. Open "Application" and run Gparted (There you can change your partitions)
4. Then click "Install Elementary"
5. Click on "Something Else" and click "Next".

The next screen may look rather intimidating but it is just showing your current disk layout.

Look at the image above. You will see all partitions on your disk (you can change disks in "Device for boot loader..." Choose free disk space there you want to install OS. You need two partitions. When you have found the partition with free space, click on it and press the plus symbol (+) under the disk layout. If you want to delete partition, click minus symbol. First, swap partition. Choose disk space you want to use and create logical partition:

It's recommended to create swap around 1GB or the size of your RAM in case you want to be able to hibernate your system (not possible on some machines).

Then create / partition. Choose your free space, set size you want, when create primary partition with mount point "/" (it's means root) as Ext4 file system.

Press "OK" and then "Install now" to continue.

Answer 2

If your Windows is installed on the SSD that means the Disk 0 is the SSD. You have unallocated space in the SSD. If you install elementary now it will get installed in that 23 GB space; in the SSD. You should expand your C drive back to its original size and partition the F drive which looks to be the hard drive to create the space for elementary. That's a start.

I don't really know how to install a distro in a drive other than the system but I assume the general procedure would be the same.

Answer 3

Thanks I'll try that. When I'll install elementary should i choose 'Install alongside Windows' or 'something else'?

I would recommend choosing Something Else. That's the only way you can ensure the OS isn't going to be installed on your SSD. If you get confused with the options in the Something Else section, you can research it. If you don't the options in that section, I believe you have the option to go back and choose another option.

Hope this helps!