Installation Woes

U can install ubuntu 10.10 into your existing Win 7 partition. It will dual boot to ubuntu or Win 7. Win 7 will detect that you have installed another program n u can use add or remove programs to uninstall ubuntu. Hope this helps.

It's called Wubi. Some people like it, some others not.
If you want a good opinion about it, ask to https://launchpad.net/~bcbc.

Could you provide partition table and I will search a workaround to install Ubuntu in an extended partition.
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1-How to get partition table?

Please provide partition table.

If you can't boot from hard drive, boot en Ubuntu CD/USB stik and then choose "Try without install".

Open a terminal: you can either press Ctrl+Alt+T or Applications->Accessories->Terminal.

To copy/paste in a terminal, replace Ctrl+C by Ctrl+Maj+C and Ctrl+V by Ctrl+Maj+V (for historical reason, Ctrl+C is assigned another function).

Paste to terminal the following commands:

    sudo fdisk -l

where "-l" is lower case "L".

Copy/paste result into a new thread post.

Here is the information from terminal - it's quite confusing to me but I hope it helps:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xfccc9db5

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 26 203776 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 26 42322 339746665 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 58055 60789 21958656 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 60789 60802 105496 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 2132 MB, 2132803584 bytes
2 heads, 63 sectors/track, 33060 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 126 * 512 = 64512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x002e89a2

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 33061 2082800 6 FAT16

Je vous remercie pour votre aide :)

As 102MB sda1 is an active and probably a recovery partition, I should prefer avoid to touch it.
Sda3 is 11GB large, so too big.
Sda4 is not directly bootable and 53MB large. I see it's a FAT32 partition.

Is sda4 this famous 'HP Tools' ?
Do you have a USB key, on which you can define a new partition table ?

I propose you to:
1-boot on Ubuntu CD/USB key, and choose "Try without install"
2-insert a "disposable" USB key (sorry for my English)
3-run System->Administration->Gparted
   a-select USB key (not the one with Ubuntu, if you boot on such a key)
   b-reduce size of current partition
   c-copy/paste partition sda4 from internal disk to free space on USB key
   d-remove sda4 from internal disk
   e-make an extended partition
   f-make a minimum( 2GB, RAM size) swap partition
   g-make a 10GB ext4 partition, on which will be mounted "/" folder
   h-copy/paste previous sda4 partition from USB key to internal disk (I HAVE TO CHECK IT CAN BE DONE)
   i-make with remaining space a ext4 partition, on which will be mounted "/home" folder (it's an option, but make more easy and reliable a future reinstallation of Ubuntu)
  j-execute all operations (green arrow)
  k-leave Gparted
4-select "Install" icon on desktop
5-during installation, select "Manual partitioning" and mount
  a-10GB ext4 on "/"
  b-other ext4 on "/home" (nothing to do for swap) (you could also define now mounting point for NTFS and FAT32 partition)
6-wait end of installation and reboot

If you agree with this, I will check that I can copy/paste between primary and logical partition on a virtual machine. I have never done this.
Think that with partitioning, you have any right to error (so you could also make backups).

Could you answer first two questions and tell me if you agree this process.

Another way could be to backup partition as a file into another one.
There is such tool in Windows and Linux, and it could be more user friendly than Gparted.
Have a look at http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php