drives not detected properly
 

Hi!
I am a biologist and till now i am using windows. I want to learn Linux so I thought of starting with Bio-Linux 6 (based on ubuntu), as I have been told its easy with bio s/ws pre-installed.

Now I have Windows 7 -32 bit installed on my laptop.

My hard disk partitions are

C:/ - 50 GB (free 23-25 GB)windows installed
D:/ - 50 GB
E:/ - 25 GB
H:/ - 26 GB formatted with no data

Now when I boot bio-linux 6 from USB live and go to computer or Gparted or fdisk -1 (command i got from this site) all of them detects drives as below.

System Reserved (not able to see in windows except in disk management)
C:/ - Free 100MB ONLY ;
D:/ - it is detected correctly;
E:/ - 100 GB

I may have not noticed this if i had not prepared my H:/ drive by formatting to install Bio-Linux

I have an option to transfer data from other visible drive and use it but, as I want to learn, I want to know why this is happening.

Please help me.

Could you post the complete output from the fdisk -l command. (that is with lowercase L, not the number one)

To clarify, you need to prefix the command above with "sudo" (w/o quotes) if your system is an Ubuntu derivative and it needs to be run from your Linux Live CD.

The output i got from command: sudo fdisk -l is as attached in screenshot:

This is too technical for me to understand.

System has been booted from USB live.

I hope i provided the required info.

So this is what it is according to Windows 7.

I don't believe that this is according to Gparted or fdisk -l, both of these latter Gnu/linux tools DO NOT SPEAK IN THAT LANGUAGE as C:/, D:/ or E:/, these lingos came from Redmond, so it is a bad report coming from the mouth of M$Windows7 again. Gparted and fdisk have nothing to do with it.


H:/ drive for Bio-Linux? Definitely impossible: Bio-linux is Ubuntu based and it doesn't think that a partition is "H:/" whatever.

Download bio-linux image and burn to a dvd --it is easier to troubleshoot from the dvd drive side and many helpers here are ready to think it over for you. Boot from it and while at Livedvd use Gparted to take a look at the geometry or terrain of your hard drive, write down each partition, size and label, and counter check your notes with " ~# fdisk -l " command. Then go back to Gparted again to prepare or format a linux file system for the bio-linux.

You can also use Parted Magic or Rescue disk to prepare the drive before you install. Go to www.distrowatch.com and choose the disk preparation tool you like.

Come back for further helps if needed.

CAUTION: DO NOT FORMAT OR CHANGE ANYTHING YET UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON IN ORDER TO AVOID LOSING YOUR WINDOWS DATA --BACK UP FIRST IMPORTANT DATA/FILE TO AN EXTERNAL DRIVE. While using Gparted LiveCD you will see clearly everything and you shall be ready to post us the necessary information for us to guide you.

Good luck.

At malekmustaq

Srry for the inconvenience. As I have just start to learn Linux (past 2-3 days) its difficult to directly switch from windows terminology to Linux terminology.

The issue is, the drives as partitioned according to win 7 is not exactly seen with linux.

The drives or partitions seen according to Gparted is as in attached schreenshot.

Now if i format and resize sda4 partition with Gparted will it affect my win7 working?

Unfortunately your Win7 system is structured to use what Microsoft calls "Dynamic Disks" - managed by the Logical Disk Manager (LDM). The Microsoft and Wikipedia sites have articles that describe this in detail.
There was an attempt to support this under Linux, but I'm not sure what happened to it. It's not something I've looked into, nor would I subject a new Linux user to the gory details of converting a partition back to basic mode and shrinking it to create some space for a Linux install.
You might be bes to persist with a liveCD until more comfortable with Linux - and how to manhandle Win7 LDM sometime in the future.

Edit: our posts crossed. Looks like Parted has the LDM dm support. I can't answer what will happen if you mess with the partitions - as I said, I've never tested it, althogh it was on my "to-do" list years ago ...

No. It will not affect the contents of sda1,2 & 3. At least as far as my experience. But it is always sound to back up everything first before doing any partitioning action.

However, the empty space freed after reduction of sda4 becomes unusable. Since sda4 is currently declared as a stand alone Primary partition you wouldn't be able to create sda5 or another primary next to it; you have need first to declare to Create a Logical partition WITHIN 4th Primary partition. Technically sda4 (4th partition) declares the volume of the Extended partition which shall house the logical partitions; e.g. one disk sliced into 8 partitions consecutively shall default to labels sda1, sda2, sda3, sda5, sda6, sda7, sda8 (number 4 is hidden) but contains partitions 5,6,7,8.

Suggested solution:

1. Data content in sda4 is only 17.15 Gib, you should back this up into an external disk or burned into 4-5 pieces of 4.7Gib DVD, you should take no action against sda4 until this backup concern is well addressed to.

2. After backup is done and confirmed launch Gparted again. Right click sda4 partition choose Create Logical Partition, formatted to Linux Swap, size=1.5Gib (or at your choice -/+ ) click Apply (NOTE: this will now destroy all existing data on sda4, but since you have already backed up fully there is nothing to worry --you may restore the contents at your time.) It should appear as sda5.

3. Repeat No. 2 procedure to the remaining space, formatted to ext4, size = 20 Gib, click Apply, this should be sda6;

4. Repeat same procedure to the rest of space formatted to ext3 or ext4, you will need these to restore your backed up data.

5. Partition sda6 (size 20 Gib) above, should be enough for any distro to install on fully.

BTW, while at Gparted LiveCD get a terminal and back up your MBR into a usb or by mounting your win7 partition and writing a copy of mbr on it; the back up file is only a very small file of 512 Bytes which can be kept even into a floppy if you have:

Now being there, /dev/sda3 <you have no plans of altering anything on it> , do the MBR back up:
Check if back up is ok:
If need to restore the MBR arises just write it back by going into the folder where 'myold.mbr is located and issue command:

If you have further questions feel free to ask.

Hope that helps.

Good luck.