I'm a complete beginner trying to install Linux Mint alongside Windows. In the installer's partitioning screen, I only see tiny 1 MB and 0 MB areas listed as free space, even though Windows shows about 190 GB free on my main SSD. How can I correctly prepare that space for Mint?
2 Answers
Those 1 MB and 0 MB entries are just tiny alignment areas and aren’t where your usable space is. Don’t try to install there. Resize the Windows partition from Windows instead of deleting or manually changing its existing partitions, then let the Linux installer use the newly unallocated space.
The 190 GB is probably free space inside your Windows partition, not unallocated space that Mint can use. Shrink the Windows partition first using Windows Disk Management: right-click the Windows partition, choose “Shrink Volume,” and select how much space to free up. Leave the resulting area unallocated, then start the Mint installer again and select that unallocated space. Back up important files first.
Exactly—free space inside a partition and unallocated space are different. The installer can only use the latter without resizing Windows itself.