Two partitions showing as same in Pysdm
 

Complete Linux newbie here :( I've got Ubuntu up and running, and I looked in Storage Device Manager and noticed something strange. My computer has one 80 gig drive with two partitions (XP and Ubuntu) and one 500 gig drive where I store my data. Here's my Fdisk -l:


Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x24399f5b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 60801 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2b9c2b9c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 5099 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 5100 9729 37190475 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 5100 9485 35230513+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 9486 9729 1959898+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris


So sda is my 500 gig, sdb is my 80 gig. I don't understand what sdb1 and sdb2 are exactly, and I think something might have been screwed up when I installed Ubuntu and made my partition.

When I go into Storage Device Manager, sda1 and sdb1 are the same. They have the same mount point, and if I try to edit one, it changes for both.

Do I need to re-partition my 80 gig drive (sdb)? I feel like that drive should just be XP, Linux, and the swap. Is there a way to fix this within Ubuntu?

Hi,

The above output looks ok to me.

/dev/sdb1 * 1 5099 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
sdb1 => Your windows partition.

/dev/sdb2 5100 9729 37190475 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
sdb2 => A container for the none primary partitions (this holds sdb5 and sdb6 in this example)

/dev/sdb5 5100 9485 35230513+ 83 Linux
sdb5 => your linux partition (which is an extended partition, not a primary)

/dev/sdb6 9486 9729 1959898+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
sdb6 => your linux swap partition (again, an extended pertition, not primary).

Take a look here:

Disk Partitioning (wikipedia)
Partition - Partitioning a hard drive (kiskea)

A disk can only have 4 primary partitions (sda1 -> sda4) if you want/need more partitions you need to create an extended partition which holds all the other partitions. A mix is also possible (true in your case: 2 primary partions, one [sdb2] being the container for the extended partitions).

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that does clear things up a bit (I didn't realize at first that sdb5 and sdb6 were on an extended partition).

I still don't understand why I can't change anything for sda1 or sdb1 separately though. For example, I set the mount point for the sdb1 as "XP" but then it says sda1 is also set to "XP".

Even though I can't give the sda1 drive it's own mount point in Storage Device Manager, when I mount it it always mounts to "SATA", not what it's set to in SDM.