TheBig3

Okay, the 300MB partition is most likely your boot partition. Windows started doing that with Vista, and has kept doing so since. The 21.38GB partition is probably your recovery partition. It should have a compressed image of the Windows partition, and possibly the boot partition too, from when it was factory new. The WinRE partition is the Windows REcovery tools, whether to fix a problem or to do a factory restore. Don't delete any of these unless you want to re-install Windows from the beginning, like if you built your own system. Otherwise, the first way mentioned above should be fine. Just keep track of your partitions. Resizing partitions, in Linux anyway (since I haven't tried using windows to resize) has always taken a while for me. Also found this on the MSI forums, don't know how much it would help, but it wouldn't hurt to be prepared: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=257900.0 And this link might help even more: https://www.lifewire.com/dual-boot-windows-8-1-linux-mint-2202090 These two videos may also help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DTy4op6G60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAW-niPJiB4 Take your time doing this, when people rush they make mistakes. if there is something you don't understand, ask questions. there are Linux Mint forums, Linux forums, other demonstrational videos to find more answers.

I can think of a few different ways of doing this, depending on how much free space you have on both drives. I am assuming that both drives are currently formatted as NTFS with one partition each. First way: Resize the partition on the ssd to free up 20-30 GB of free space. Create a new primary partition about 24-28 GB, assuming you have 30GB free, and format it ext4. This will be your root (/) mount point. With the remaining 2-4 GB, make it an extended partition, then a logical partition in that partition and format it as swap. This is your swap partition. On the 1TB drive, see if you have about 120 or so GB free. If you do, I'd resize that partition to free up that space. Create a new partition in that free space, format it as ext4, and set the mount point as /usr. this is where your user programs, including ones you compile yourself, will be installed. The final thing, in this setup is where you want to put the boot loader. You can put it on the primary hard drive, usually /sda, or you could specify the partition that has linux installed, it would look something like /sda#, the # being whichever partition Linux is installed on. I'd recommend the first way, unless you know how to get the Windows boot loader to recognize the linux install. When I tried the technical preview, Windows 10 was able to see my linux install and create a boot entry for it, so there should be way. That way might be a bit more complicated but I believe it would work better in the long run. Second way: On the 1TB drive, free up about 120-200GB of space, resize that partition giving you the 120-200GB space. Create a new primary partition, leaving 2-4GB free, and format as ext4, then set it as your root (/) mount point. This partition will hold everything, the OS data, your user data, downloads, everything. With the remaining 2-4GB free space, make an extended partition, then a logical partition, and format it as swap. Again, choose where you want the boot loader installed, this time either /sda or /sdb# (whatever partition # Linux is installed at). This way should be simpler to do. I apologize if this seems very confusing or even intimidating. I'd recommend having a backup copy of whichever version of Windows you have to re-install should anything get messed up. Maybe even find a downloadable copy of Windows and copying down your Windows key somewhere. I hope this helps you some.

The you need to find out how much space is used by the Adobe CC apps, especially if you uninstall any other programs to free up more space. I don't know which apps you use, but I found a list of system requirements for the various CC apps; https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html#Systemrequirements My last Linux install had used about 60GB of a 120GB drive, but I had software for working with android and playing windows games installed as well. But just installing and going online with Linux can be done with as little as 20GB of space. Also, don't forget a swap partition. Even a 2GB one should work fine, especially with your 16GB of ram. The next question then is what do you want installed on Linux Mint, and what do you want to do with it?

It sounds like you already have most of it planned out. The only thing left would seem to be which desktop environment you want. Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, or KDE. I chose the KDE because for 15, and 16 & 17 as well, there is a pony theme for it. It doesn't seem to work with 18, yet, though. http://twilightdash88.deviantart.com/art/MLP-FiM-MDM-Linux-Theme-401610839 Do you plan on replacing Windows or dual booting? If you plan on dual booting remember to leave some room for Windows updates.