Fedora Installer Not Detecting Unallocated Space on Dynamic Disk (Dual Boot with Windows)

[Chiranjeev sahu]

P.S. I’m pretty new to Linux, so if anything I said sounds dumb, I apologize in advance. 😅 Just trying to learn!

I’m trying to install Fedora alongside Windows on my dual-boot setup, but I’ve hit a roadblock. Hoping someone here can help!

My Setup

Main SSD: Windows 11 (UEFI, untouched).

Secondary HDD (1TB): Previously had Ubuntu, but I wiped it.

Unallocated Space: Shrunk the HDD in Windows Disk Management to free up 100GB for Fedora.

Issue: The HDD is a Dynamic Disk, which I’ve now realized might be a problem.

Problem
​

Fedora Doesn’t See the Free Space – The installer only detects 1MB free on the HDD instead of 100GB.

"Reclaim Space" thing during the installation freezes and crashes – Clicking it just locks up the installer.

Dynamic Disk Confusion – I read that Linux doesn’t support Dynamic Disks, but ubuntu installed fine on this same HDD before (when it was already a Dynamic Disk).Fedora refuses to recognize the partitions or the unallocated space.

Till now I've tried:

GParted (Fedora Live USB) – The entire HDD shows as allocated (no visible free space).
Fedora’s Manual Partitioning – Doesn’t detect the unallocated space at all.
Terminal Commands (fdisk, parted**)** –parted -l shows the disk as GPT but no unallocated space andfdisk -l lists all 1TB as used.

Why Did Ubuntu Work Before? like could it have ignored the Dynamic Disk issue while Fedora is stricter or something?

Can I Fix This Without Losing Data? I don’t have backups, so is there a way to:Convert the disk from Dynamic to Basic without wiping it?

Can I manually create partitions via terminal before launching the installer?

Would really appreciate any advice, especially if there’s a way to fix this without losing data?

Also i wanna move on from windows so do suggest some beginner friendly distros(other than ubuntu) i should try to get better at linux. Would be greatful for any advice

Thanks in advance!

Edit: im trying to install Fedora Workstation 41,on 8gb RAM, 128gb SSD and 1TB HDD with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sat, Feb 01, 2025 at 05:00:28PM +0000, Chiranjeev sahu via websites wrote:
> P.S. I’m pretty new to Linux, so if anything I said sounds dumb, I apologize in advance. 😅 Just trying to learn!

Not dumb at all, just not in the right place here. ;)

This is a list for the folks who make the fedoraproject.org websites,
nothing to do with install support.

See https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/help/

kevin