I will try another Disto if I can. I restored windows too. Are there other, safer methods to do this if I only have one SSD. Also, If I do reinstall how do I tell the installer specifically which partition to use

Actually It was completely wiped apart from a few fragments in the recovery D: drive & thanks to the disk management system being the worst I have ever seen, it put the C: drive into a 26GB partition instead of the 210GB that its supposed to be in which is now D:

Yes I have recovered windows & all my files completely now & that USB I used for windows (just bought one big enough for booting) should be able to be used for linux files, I can just transfer them over from the SD can’t I?

I have a 28GB D drive that seems to be being used for recovery and backups & a 210GB C drive, I could easily free about 30GB for another partition. I have the bootable USB set up.

about 90GB is left on C:\ but I’ll only need 30GB for my linux partition. Besides, I can always resize the partition later, right?

okay, that’s done. Now what do I do? I am assuming we need to tell the PC to install linyx into that partition (& only that partition without erasing the entire drive)

Let me check if I have this right. Once i have the USB and disc partition set up boot from the USB & go to the installer. Then select download alongside and chiose tge partition to install linux to?

Okay so Just leave some unallocated space of tge size needed tge option to install alongsode windows will be tgere select that and itll install to the unallocated memory, without touching windows?

okay, installed with all the right options & it works. Thanks for your help

i let it sit there for about 25 mins how long should it normally be taking? isnt initramfs a vey basic component this is strange since everything else takes only up to 5mins to install

and by the installation is fine I mean up until that step everything has been working fine. installing software/bootloadet