Installing Ubuntu Desktop on C or E?

Support and Help
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Goal - to install Ubuntu Desktop 25.04.3 on a Lenovo Laptop so I can dual boot both operating systems
During the installation process (from a USB drive) I reach the question: How would you like to install Ubuntu? I think I should select “Install Ubuntu alongside them” which I take to mean alongside Windows 10. Am I right?

Next I get the question: Where would you like to install Ubuntu? I’m offered “Select partition”
The two options are:
sda3 – Windows Boot Manager – 998.86GB
and
nvme0n1p3 – Windows Boot Manager – 254.83GB

Which should I choose? My laptop has a C: and an E:

According to Storage…

the C: drive has 237GB, of which 118GB is used and 118GB is free - this is wherWindows10 is installed
and the E: drive has 930GB, of which 267GB is used and 662GB is free.

From the information in those two “select partition” options (see above) is
“sda3 – Windows Boot Manager – 998.86GB” the E: drive
and is
“nvme0n1p3 – Windows Boot Manager – 254.83GB” the C: drive?

Will they both boot Ubuntu?

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That is correct.

That’s a matter of your preference. Either will work.
Folks will have various conflicting opinions, and good reasons to justify those opinions.

Yes, either will boot Ubuntu.
It’s NOT a choice fraught with danger.

Many dual-boot users eventually reinstall after they have enough experience with Ubuntu to have an opinion of their own.

Advice: Repartitioning is inherently risky. Back up all Windows data before installing Ubuntu.

Advice: For the same reason, if you later decide to reinstall one OS, back up both Windows and Ubuntu before any reinstalling or repartitioning.

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The official documentation also has useful information to read before starting:
https://canonical-ubuntu-desktop-documentation.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/tutorial/install-ubuntu-desktop/

If you get stuck, come and ask again before proceeding.

4

You can install in either the NVMe fast drive or the slower HDD drive.
Which system will you use the most?

Windows NTFS likes lots of extra space or if over about 70% used it starts to slow down. Linux ext4 needs extra space but not as much.

Best to use Windows to shrink NTFS partition to make unallocated space for Ubuntu and reboot so it can run chkdsk to internally update to its new size. Make sure Windows fast start up & bitlocker (if you have it) are off.

In UEFI make sure fast boot is off as that assumes no changes & just reboots last configuration. Most seem to need drives changed from Intel RST or RAID to AHCI, but you need to install Windows AHCI drivers for Windows to work. You can have UEFI Secure Boot on or off, but if proprietary drivers required, like for nVidia, you have to manually create your own MOK or machine owner key saying driver is secure.

Bit more advanced is to have Ubuntu / (root) on faster NVMe drive and /home or your data and user configurations on the HDD. You have to use Something Else or manual install to be able to choose/create separate partitions for / & /home.

Standard Install

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Not contradicting what anyone else indicated is possible, my strong recommendation, if you have 2 physical drives (not partitions), is to keep the Windows drive a pure-Windows installation and, in parallel with that, a separate pure Linux drive which contains the GRUB boot loader, with the Linux drive as having boot priority before the Windows drive, but Grub offering the menu of OSs that grub’s OS Prober will build, giving you the choice from them all, at time of boot.

More discussion and explanation as to the why, for doing that, can be found here:

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Thank you everyone. I now have a laptop that dual boots Ubuntu and Windows 10.

First steps…

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