Windows – Installing Windows 7 Without Formatting Another Disk Partition

I would do one of two options:

1) Install Linux in a virtual machine. There is free VM software such as VirtualBox, or commercial software like VMware Workstation.

Pros of a VM:

• Run the guest OS (Linux) at the same time as the host (Windows), don't have to reboot to switch. You can even have a shared clipboard for copy/pasting data between the two.
• No need to change existing partitions.
• Easy to make and restore VM backups, or completely reinstall the guest OS.

Cons of a VM:

• The guest OS won't run quite as fast as if it was installed as a dual boot option.
• The guest OS sometimes can't use advanced features (like full graphics acceleration).

2) Rearrange your existing partitions so that Linux can go on one of the first three. To do this you will probably need an external HDD you can temporarily move data onto. I would backup all the contents of your "User Data" partition, then delete that partition, as well as the extended 50GB partition (and maybe the recovery partition as well if you don't feel you need it).

Then re-create the 50GB partition for Linux; this time it will be one of the first three partitions. Use the left over space to make an extended partition for the User Data to go back onto.

You can shrink half the size volume C using Device Manager, then format freed unallocated space, but do not assign letter on it, but attach to any drive as a hard link to a folder on volume D or E. When you will write data to that folder on that volume, your data will be written to the disk C:. In other words you will be able to use an additional space on volume C without risky operations and this solution is ultra fast. In the future, be more patient when planning your hard drives configuration to boot windows on it. In linux or mac that is not a problem, since, them not using primary-logical partitions, but they can use GUID partitioning to reference to a particular hard drive partition.