gparted shows no partitions

wussboy · 02-17-2007, 04:30 AM

I dual-booted ubuntu with Win XP and everything was fine. Then I needed to re-install Win XP, which I did. When I went back into my Live Ubuntu disk to re-install GRUB, I was going to change my partitions. Gparted opened and showed my disk as being completely unallocated space. This, of course, is not the case. I typed "sudo fdisk -l" and had this printed out.

omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1275 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 7267 11147 31174132+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3 10998 11147 1204843+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4 11148 14593 27679995 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 7267 10997 29969194+ b W95 FAT32

I'd really like to get my installed Ubuntu working again. Anyone have any advice on how to re-install grub and (better yet) get gparted to see my partitions?

Thanks in advance.

tbutttbutt · 02-17-2007, 10:35 PM

if you do 'sudo grub-install /dev/hda' GRUB will be installed in the MBR of your (first) disk and you will be able to boot up into either Windows or Linux.

wussboy · 02-18-2007, 02:40 AM

Okay, I tried that, and got this error:

Probing device to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

I'm not sure what this means, but I don't think it's good. Any idea what I should try next? Thanks in advance.

tbutttbutt · 02-19-2007, 02:19 AM

What does your ..grub/device.map file say?

This is mine:

# this device map was generated by anaconda
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb

I have two hard disks and linux is on (hd1) the second hard disk. The boot disk is the first one and it has windows. GRUB is installed on the master boot record of the first disk.

If you have one disk your device.map should have a line like the first. Put that one line (if it isn't there) and do 'grub-install /dev/hda' again.

Interdictor · 02-19-2007, 03:31 AM

Maybe this will be of some help, I've got a dual boot windows & ubuntu machine which has a single hard drive.

My "grub/device.map" file says this:-

Code:

(hd0)	/dev/hda

And my "menu.lst" say this:-

Code:

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-11-generic
root		(hd0,5)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-11-generic root=/dev/hda6 ro quiet splash
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-11-generic
quiet
savedefault
boot


### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title		Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda2
title		Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root		(hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

Hope thats of some use, my Win XP is installed in the first partition, with a 2nd "Drive D" for sharing data between Win XP & Ubuntu, beyond that, there's an extended partition with Ubuntu & Swap partitions.

Screener · 02-19-2007, 08:10 AM

This thing happened to me three weeks ago and i never understood why
i always had ubuntu and xp even when i wanted to try other distro's and i wanted to install it ontop of the ext3 partition it would not show any thing except the whole drive ??

i did not know what to do so i just installed ubuntu 6.10 on all the drive

and now i only have Linux and no XP . . . anyway i haven't been using XP for a long time . . . and i needed the space