i want to dual boot kubuntu.

i am a linux noob so have basically no experience with linux except what i have done of the live cd.

my problem is that when i get to the part of the installer relating to partitions. it wont allow me to select the free space i have shrunk off my windows/data partition. it calls the space unusable and will not allow me to proceed when it is selected.

shouldnt the installer turn the free space into a partition for kubuntu to install to?

the installer also show a bar wich marks off the partitions and how much each one takes up it does recongnize that there is free space because it tells me that i have 25 gb free.

i really would like to come to a solution. i have created a topic pertaining to this problem because because the one i have made is either deleted or ignored because it is old goes back a few pages.

Did the installer give a option called manual install or custom install or expert install ?
If so use on of this option to select the free partition.
Also give it the option / = mount point and format .
Of course only for the free space
BTW sometimes you have to edit the partition

Just a thought, though this might or might not be the problem.
How many windows partitions do you have? are there more the 4 primary partitions, I recall facing a similar problem when I had 4 primary partitions in windows and I think we can not have more than 4 primary partitions in the system....

Yes that is correct the max . primary partition is 4 .
If you still like to install kbuntu delete a primary partition and create a secondary partition in the extended partition.
Linux do not need a primary partition to boot from.

yep that was the problem. i deleted a recovery partition lol.

and no, it didnt give install options.

i also used gparted to delete and create partitions.

If you start up from you're install media , after a few questions it should comes to a point where you can make the decision where to install .
One of the options should be : Specify Partitions Manually (Advance)
It should do not do anything to you're hard drive until you pass this section.

i deleted a recovery partition (yeah bit risky) in gparted and from there it allowed me to create an ext4 partition.

oh yeah it did give me that option but im saying that the problem was when i was trying to create a partition from the free space i had, it wouldnt let me and it called the space unusable. i guess i could have formatted partitions from that section but didnt realize i was able to.

If you have a Windows install CD, that is probably better than the recovery partition.

If you don't have the CD, it is very unfortunate that you had to delete the recovery partition. It would have been worth some extra effort to get out of the situation more safely and/or copy the recovery partition to CD or DVD before destroying it.

No clue what you mean by the highlighted phrase. If you had four primary partitions, you were kind of painted into a corner. Transforming a primary into a logical would have been very difficult. Adding logical partitions before removing one of the four primary partitions should be impossible. So pretty much the only reasonably choice would be backing up one of the primary partitions, then destroying it to allow you to create an extended partition in which you would create multiple logical partitions.

BTW, why did you originally have four partitions for Windows?

yes i had 4 primary partitions. windows of course, a partition for my recycle bin, and 2 recovery partitions. one for windows and one for data.

and by the highlighted phrase, i meant the stage in the installer where it asks you where you want to install linux. it gives you options to format partitions there.

That wouldn't have worked either. The installer apparently didn't figure out that it couldn't use the unpartitioned space because there were four primary partitions, so it offered you the choice to use that unpartitioned space. But the tools it would call are subject to the same limit (no more partitions on that drive of any kind after four primary partitions). So selecting that choice would make the installer fail soon after.

no i mean formating a primary partition, so that there are only 3 within the installer and that i have the ability to create another partition.