# Asus UX31 - where to start?

## Baer

Hi,

I recently bought an Asus UX31 Ultrabook, which was shipped with a pre-installed Microsoft Windows 7 installation. I'm already experienced installing Linux (especially Gentoo) on "older" boxes (intel Pentium-4 generation), but unluckily I have no idea on how to preserve the windows installation and not kill any hidden/rescue partitions.

The current layout of the built-in harddsk looks like this:

- 95GB (NTFS, C: in windows),

- 135GB (NTFS, D: in windows),

- ~8GB (not really detected by windows, might be a rescue partiton).

My plan is to shrink the second slot (using tools from windows) and try to get around 40GB for a gentoo installation) which should be more than enough space and installing grub into the MBR (which should hopefully not render the laptop unbootable, or the rescue partition unreachable). 

What do you guys think? Is there a better way to start?

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## kimmie

That sounds about right to me.

I'd back up the whole disk just to be safe.

Just in case, back up the MBR with dd before you overwrite it using grub, and make sure you've got some sort of system rescue boot available.

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## aCOSwt

 *Baer wrote:*   

> Hi,My plan is to shrink the second slot (using tools from windows) and try to get around 40GB for a gentoo installation)

 

You should check for this but the D partition is unlikely to be loaded with any system related files.

=> I would personally :

- Backup the files from the D partition,

- Remove completely the D partition,

- Create the Linux partitions (preserving space for a D' NTFS partition)

- Create the D' NTFS partition, on which you will restore the backup.

I would find this more efficient (From the Linux system standpoint) as the Linux partitions will be geographically located closer to the inner tracks of your disk than if you had just resized D.

This is a real improvement.

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## albright

doesn't the ux31 have an ssd - location of partitions will be

irrelevant if so

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## Baer

 *albright wrote:*   

> doesn't the ux31 have an ssd - location of partitions will be
> 
> irrelevant if so

 

That's right, it's a 256GB SSD disk.

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## roki942

Just as a side note. Create the recovery DVDs. With them you can repair windows or ever put the drive back to how it was when it come out of the box. If you ever decide to sell it.

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## aCOSwt

 *albright wrote:*   

> doesn't the ux31 have an ssd - location of partitions will be
> 
> irrelevant if so

 

 :Embarassed:   You are correct.

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## luismw

I haven't tried the exact thing you are proposing, but I can confirm that the D: partition doesn't contain anything essential for Windows. I just wiped out that partition to install gentoo and Windows didn't even flinch.

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