ubuntu installation through live cd

Hello friends I am trying to install ubuntu 12.04 alongside with windows through a live cd. But when I click on the icon "install ubuntu 12.04 LTS" and go next. It gives me a message that there is no operating system detected on this PC. And when I click on "something else" I can't see my windows partition and the free space where I was supposed to install Ubuntu. Please help me.... and suggest me how to solve this problem

Give us the full specs of your system.

I don't understand the need to of full system specs here. It's simply that, may be Ubuntu is not detecting the Windows because of some reason.

I'd recommend you to create partitions manually and install Ubuntu

You need to create two partitions...

1. / (pronounced as root) : ext4
2. Swap

If you want to allocate say 10GB for Ubuntu...allocate 8GB for / (root) and 2GB for Swap.

Though 1GB of Swap is enough for most systems.

Give the system specs buddy !!!

Will that be reliable? Doesn't the above way has a risk of over-writing the windows partition, if it does not detect anything on the HDD?

krishnandu.sarkar said:
I don't understand the need to of full system specs here. It's simply that, may be Ubuntu is not detecting the Windows because of some reason.

I'd recommend you to create partitions manually and install Ubuntu

You need to create two partitions...

1. / (pronounced as root) : ext4
2. Swap

If you want to allocate say 10GB for Ubuntu...allocate 8GB for / (root) and 2GB for Swap.

Though 1GB of Swap is enough for most systems.

Today I installed ubuntu on my 16 GB pen drive (Not Live). And I didn't made any swap partition... will there be any problem?

If your machine has 1GB or more RAM then you don't need any SWAP partition. It's recommended to create one but its not required most of the time.

^^^Thanks

ghost at rest said:
If your machine has 1GB or more RAM then you don't need any SWAP partition. It's recommended to create one but its not required most of the time.

+1, Swap is only a temporary place where the computer dumps the information of the RAM when running too many applications(it dumps the information of the inactive applications onto the hdd)

how to install ubuntu 10.10 in 16gb usb with live dvd

windows 7, motherboard: GIGABYTE, intel core 2 duo, 2GB RAM, 32-bit operating system, 320 GB Hard disk. Do I need to mention anything else

krishnandu.sarkar said:
I don't understand the need to of full system specs here. It's simply that, may be Ubuntu is not detecting the Windows because of some reason.

I'd recommend you to create partitions manually and install Ubuntu

You need to create two partitions...

1. / (pronounced as root) : ext4
2. Swap

If you want to allocate say 10GB for Ubuntu...allocate 8GB for / (root) and 2GB for Swap.

Though 1GB of Swap is enough for most systems.

how am I suppose to create manual partition?? Are U suggesting to use GPartition... By the way I forget to mention that while live cd is inserted and I click on "Go" and then "computer" I can access the data on my windows drive
but when I go to install it does not detect any operating system.

^^Yes, partition manually by selecting "Something Else". You can create partition on that free space.

Could you post the output of fdisk command or GParted screenshot here?

Dual-boot Linux Mint 11 and Windows 7