Where are my partitions?

dcroxton · 08-02-2005, 10:36 AM

I have a computer that is already partitioned and running Mepis on a couple of the partitions. When I try to install Ubuntu 5.0.4, it doesn't recognize any of my existing partitions; the only options it gives me are to erase the whole of hda, or to manually edit the partition table (which, since it sees no partitions, also means erasing hda).

The odd thing here is that I have installed Ubuntu on this same computer before, and it seemed to work fine. It seems a little odd that such a user-friendly distribution would not have a more graphical installation; I'm trying to remember if it appeared graphically before or not, but I don't recall. But I do know that it recognized my existing partitions and allowed me to install to them.

Am I doing something wrong? Or does anyone know what the problem could be?

danns · 08-02-2005, 02:54 PM

Ubuntu does not have a graphical installer, it's all text based.

Boot the installation disc and then switch to another terminal (alt + left or right arrow key). Enter:

fdisk -l

This should list your partitions (for /dev/hda that is).

If you get an error, specify the device:

fdisk -l /dev/hdb
fdisk -l /dev/sda

You get the picture.

Do you notice any error messages during the boot process? You can double check by doing a dmesg |less (or more if less is not avaialable) at the console.

If that does not work, do you have a live cd like Knoppix or Damn Small Linux that you can boot from and run fdisk -l to see if the partitions show up under that distro?

Another test you could do is to boot into Mepis and see if Mepis reports the partitions accurately.

dcroxton · 08-02-2005, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by danns
Another test you could do is to boot into Mepis and see if Mepis reports the partitions accurately.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I'm sorry I didn't specify in my first post: Mepis does show my partitions correctly. I want to install Ubuntu alongside Mepis. I know the partitions are there because Mepis can mount them and read from them. That's what led me to believe that the problem was with Ubuntu.

I will check the existence of the partitions using fdisk or Knoppix tonight and post the results.

Thanks again,

dcroxton · 08-02-2005, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by danns
Ubuntu does not have a graphical installer, it's all text based.

Boot the installation disc and then switch to another terminal (alt + left or right arrow key). Enter:

fdisk -l

This should list your partitions (for /dev/hda that is).

If you get an error, specify the device:

fdisk -l /dev/hdb
fdisk -l /dev/sda

You get the picture.

Do you notice any error messages during the boot process? You can double check by doing a dmesg |less (or more if less is not avaialable) at the console.

If that does not work, do you have a live cd like Knoppix or Damn Small Linux that you can boot from and run fdisk -l to see if the partitions show up under that distro?

Another test you could do is to boot into Mepis and see if Mepis reports the partitions accurately.

Okay, I started the Ubuntu installation, went to a shell, and ran fdisk -l. The result showed all my partitions. Now the question is, why won't Ubuntu let me install to one of them? It doesn't give me any options except erasing all of hda. I ran dmesg | more to look for problems. I didn't see any obvious ones concerning the hard drive, although admittedly I have little idea what to look for.

Any ideas?

Thanks again,

danns · 08-02-2005, 11:59 PM

Not to make you repeat yourself, but I want to be clear that you did choose the option to manually edit the partition table and when you did, it showed there were no partitions at all on the HD. That being said, under the ubuntu installer's partitioner is your drive showing up as 100% free space?

Do you have an unpartitioned free space on the HD?

dcroxton · 08-04-2005, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by danns
Not to make you repeat yourself, but I want to be clear that you did choose the option to manually edit the partition table and when you did, it showed there were no partitions at all on the HD. That being said, under the ubuntu installer's partitioner is your drive showing up as 100% free space?

Do you have an unpartitioned free space on the HD?

When I went to partition, the summary partition page showed only hda, with the single option of erasing the entire disk to create a new partition.

I don't have any unpartitioned free space, but I do have unused partitions where I want to install Ubuntu.

Does that help? I can copy the exact messages if necessary.

roelofs · 12-27-2005, 11:29 AM

I didn't see an answer to dcroxton's problem, and I can't say that I have one, either, but I do (did) have the same problem he did and perhaps have a little more information about it.

In my case, the entire extended partition on the second disk showed up to Ubuntu's installer simply as "primary" with "no recognized filesystem" (or something like that). Regardless of what I tried, Ubuntu's partition tool would not/could not see the logical partitions within the extended partition. Yet it had no problem with the first disk.

Here's the initial fdisk setup (from a different machine):

Code:

Disk /dev/hdc: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 3310 cylinders

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl     Start      Size ID
 1 80   1   1    0 254  63  181         63    2923767 0c
 2 00   0   1  182 254  63 1022    2923830   50251320 0f
 3 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 4 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 5 00   1   1  182 254  63  819         63   10249407 83
 6 00   1   1  820 254  63  880         63     979902 83
 7 00   1   1  881 254  63 1023         63    7807527 83
 8 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63    7405902 83
 9 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63    3903732 83
10 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63    2506077 82
11 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63    2891637 83
12 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63    1445787 83
13 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63   13060782 83

a.k.a.

Code:

Disk /dev/hdc: 27.2 GB, 27226644480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3310 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *           1         182     1461883+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2             183        3310    25125660    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc5   ext2      183         820     5124703+  83  Linux   /older/data
/dev/hdc6   ext3      821         881      489951   83  Linux   /
/dev/hdc7   ext3      882        1367     3903763+  83  Linux   /usr    NEW
/dev/hdc8   ext3     1368        1828     3702951   83  Linux   /opt    NEW
/dev/hdc9   ext3     1829        2071     1951866   83  Linux   /usr/local
/dev/hdc10           2072        2227     1253038+  82  Linux swap      NEW
/dev/hdc11  ext3     2228        2407     1445818+  83  Linux   /home   NEW
/dev/hdc12  ext2     2408        2497      722893+  83  Linux   /older/cdr3
/dev/hdc13  ext2     2498        3310     6530391   83  Linux   /older/util

The partitions marked "older" are the ones I'd hoped to preserve, and the others were all freshly formatted (mke2fs -c -j) and ready to go.

My first thought was that Ubuntu was refusing to see those partitions because they were already "in use," so I rebooted to Slackware (/dev/hda5) and deleted partitions hdb6-hdb11. No joy.

Then I guessed Ubuntu might not understand "W95 Extended" partitions, so I used Slackware's fdisk to change the type to 5 ("normal" extended). Obviously that doesn't alter the actual format of the partition, so I wasn't too surprised that it didn't work, either. But that was the last hope for the Alliance...

In the end, I had to use Ubuntu's partition tool to blow away the
whole thing and repartition. It wasn't a great loss, but it was extremely irritating; the disk was originally formatted back in 2000 and last modified (partition-wise) in early 2001, so there doesn't seem to be any excuse for a 2005.10 Ubuntu not to be able to read it correctly. Both Slackware 9 (2003) and Slackware 10 (2004) do so perfectly.

Half an hour's perusal of the Ubuntu site didn't turn up any leads, either, by the way.

sporkinum · 06-02-2006, 02:25 PM

Just downloaded Ubuntu dapper drake last night, and it still has this same problem. I have been a mandrake user for years, but wanted to try out Ubuntu due to all the good press. I tried hoary hedgehog a while back and gave up for this same reason. You would think by now they would have addressed this issue. I guess they expect you to blow away a whole hard drive on an install.

davidsrsb · 06-03-2006, 02:44 AM

I had no problem getting breezy to share a drive with WinXP

Trying to reinstall dapper over a breezy partition I do not want to wipe the whole drive so I tried manual edit and the machine hung - a pull battery out lock up.

Prijkel · 07-06-2006, 06:45 AM

I have similar problems. I am new to Ubuntu and Unix.
With the live CD I can see all my partitions.
When I try to install Ubuntu and get to partition it shows my first hd without any partition. (It has 3 partitions).
My second HD with only 1 partition shows up normaly.
Anybody has any good solution ?
Regards,
Frans

arielito · 09-30-2006, 01:54 PM

I'm having exactly the same problem with Edgy Knot 3 and Edgy Beta 1. I have a dell latitude d620 with a sata disk.
I wonder if someone could find a solution to this??
Thanks!

gracchus · 12-17-2006, 08:21 PM

I've been using Gentoo for a few years, and have run every major (and some minor) Linux and BSD distros since 1994. Though I like Gentoo, the time for upgrading and maintenance has begun to wear thin, and thought I'd check (K)Ubuntu, as it was Debian-based (my next favorite packaging system next to the "portage-based" systems out there).

I have to say, though, that after experiencing the same issues with the 'partman' utility built into the Ubuntu 6.10 'Edgy' installer that others posting here have discussed, I have to wonder why the Ubuntu team hasn't replaced this odd utility after what appears to be a few years of similar problems. At least give users the option of using 'fdisk' (maybe not the best choice for newbies, but warm & fuzzy & familiar to those of us who've used it for years....at least it shows all the logical partitions!). I suspect my setup, dual boot on master disk with Linux installed to multiple logical partitions, is not that much different than others posting here. Frankly, the partitioning utility of every distro I've ever tried had no problem seeing my partition table....'partman' has a problem. Dump it or fix it, then I'll be glad to try Ubuntu.

ferante · 04-27-2007, 03:59 PM

I had this problem and it turned out to be my extended partition. Supposedly, one can only have 4 physical partitions, but using extended partitions you can have more. So my solution was to delete the extended partitions. The result (you need to reboot first) is that the installer and gparted see the partitions. This wouldn't be an appropriate solution if you wanted to save the extended partitions.