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I am trying to dual-boot my laptop with linux, which requires you to add a partition where the OS will be installed, however, my laptop (which runs Windows 10) already has these 4 partitions (I have never added any):

  • 100mb - Healthy (EFI System Partition)
  • ACER (C:) - 465.20 GB NTFS - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
  • 500mb - Healthy (Recovery Partition)
  • Data (D:) - 465.71 GB NTFS - Healthy (Primary Partition)

Is it possible for me to delete any of these partitions, or is there a work around so I can add another partition for the linux boot?

  • You may shrink the primary partitions. – Biswapriyo Sep 05 '17 at 13:17
  • But you can only have 4 partitions right? –  Sep 05 '17 at 13:20
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    You can only have 4 partitions on an MBR partitioned disk (default on BIOS based firmware), but the fact that you have an EFI partition shows you have a UEFI firmware where the default partition scheme is GPT which allows more partitions. – Mokubai Sep 05 '17 at 13:22
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    Possible duplicate of How can I migrate a Windows 10 from BIOS/MBR boot to UEFI/GPT without reinstalling?. In order to use this tool you will likely have to delete your data partition. Any tool to convert MBR to GPT would require a similar process by the way. However, MBR2GPT is the supported method by Microsoft, which means it is less prone to mistakes. If you are already using GPT then you can disregard this duplicate close vote. – Ramhound Sep 05 '17 at 13:34
  • Although converting from BIOS/MBR to EFI/GPT might be a useful solution to Shawn's issue, chances are it's unnecessary; and even if it would be a useful solution, it's not the only one. Thus, this question really is not a duplicate of the one Ramhound suggests as a duplicate. – Rod Smith Sep 07 '17 at 18:19
  • @Mokubai, MBR disks can have ESPs; they're type code 0xEF on MBR. That said, ESPs are uncommon on MBR disks, so your diagnosis is probably correct. My answer elaborates on this. – Rod Smith Sep 07 '17 at 18:21

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You say your computer runs Windows 10 and that its first partition is an EFI System Partition (ESP). This combination strongly suggests that it's currently booting in EFI mode from a GPT disk. If so, there is no 4-primary-partition limit, and you can create up to 124 more partitions on the disk before you hit the 128-partition limit of GPT -- and that limit can be raised, if necessary.

If my inference is wrong, you can convert a partition from primary to logical form with some partitioning tools. The one with which I'm most familiar is my own FixParts, which comes with most Linux distributions in a package called gdisk or gptfdisk. Some commercial Windows tools can do the job, too, but I'm not familiar with the details. Note that there are some caveats and limitations, which probably vary from one program to another; see the documentation for whatever you're using for the details.

See this page of mine for information on determining your current boot mode.

Rod Smith
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