14.04 LTS installation after Windows 7 terminally stuck at "Installation type" page

[mathog]

On a wiped 1TB disk (WD10EARS), motherboard Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H, Windows 7 was installed. It created one small partition and one large one (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2). W7 runs fine. Rebooted to Ubuntu 14.04 "try" mode and fdisk sees this partition table and can add new partitions and rewrite it. So it isn't GPT.

Try to install Ubuntu on it though..

boot from DVD
select Install
it is connected to network (wired ethernet), there is plenty of free space, check "download updates" and "allow 3rd party" and continue.

It eventually gets to the "Installation Type" page and that is completely screwed up. It looks like the one here:

http://superuser.com/questions/74491...ing-partitions

except free space is not shown and there is nothing in the white area where one supposes it should show the existing partitions and free space. The device/bootloader section shows "/dev/sda".

I cannot get past this page. Tried clicking on "+", "change", and "install now" and none of them go anywhere.

I tried adding a partition with fdisk, writing the table, removing the partition, writing the table, and then installing but 14.04 still couldn't figure out what to do.

Suggestions?

[mathog]

This thread is about a similar issue:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2203305

unfortunately it isn't very clear what the OP finally did to resolve the issue. Some things I note though are:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...8#post12918168

that is exactly what I am seeing in the "installation type" page. The fdisk output

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...1#post12919131

is very similar for the first two partitions. My best guess is that that system also had a Windows 7 install done on it, and there is something toxic about the partition table that was created. fdisk is OK with it, but the installer is choking. What I think I will try next is to copy down the partition information, copy the MBR some place safe, nuke the MBR, and remake the partition using fdisk. It probably won't boot Windows anymore, but maybe Ubuntu will see the disk.

Note: in the BIOS it is using AHCI for the SATA controller.

[oldfred]

Is Windows hibernated or need chkdsk?
Or have you used all 4 primary partitions?
Or was drive gpt and your Windows 7 install did not convert from gpt correctly (which it what it does)?
Most of reasons for installer not showing Windows, any partition type error
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html


Best to resize Windows using Windows own tools but not create new partitions. If you create more than 4 then it converts to dynamic which does not work with Linux at all.

I often suggest a shared NTFS data partition. You may want that and all the LInux partitions to be in the extened partition as logical partitions.

GParted partitioning software - Full tutorial
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
Screenshots of using gparted
http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

While Windows is working and configured the way you want make a full image backup.

Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post12611710
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Another suggestion by srs5694
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Make your own Windows repairCD (not vendor recovery):
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm
Windows users only - Silverlight
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/w...em-repair-disc

Windows 7 repair USB, Also Vista if service pack installed
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-re...tion-dvd-disc/
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/creat...usb-drive.html

[mathog]

Nope, Ubuntu still doesn't see it.

[mathog]

Is Windows hibernated or need chkdsk?
Or have you used all 4 primary partitions?
Or was drive gpt and your Windows 7 install did not convert from gpt correctly (which it what it does)?
Most of reasons for installer not showing Windows, any partition type error
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html

None of these.

Overwriting the first block with zeros and remaking the partition with fdisk doesn't help either

I think maybe Ubuntu is unhappy because there is 1Mb of unused space before the first NTFS partition. Either that or
there is something about that first NTFS partition it doesn't like.

[oldfred]

Post this:
sudo parted -l

All new drives have about 1MB at beginning.
Partitions start at sector 2048 for compatibility with new 4K and SSD drives.

[mathog]

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=2000

and it does the same thing!

(edit - to be specific, it comes up blank and there is no free space shown, and it ignores the + and change buttons)

How long is it supposed to take to get from the "preparing to install" screen to the "installation type" screen? Normally when I install an OS that step is just a few seconds, here it takes minutes.

[oldfred]

What was this drive before you installed Windows?

[mathog]

What was this drive before you installed Windows?

The disk was a dual boot Windows XP / Ubuntu 10.x. XP in the first partition. Hmm, wait a minute, I bought a batch of these from a vendor who had found that they did not work well in a RAID. Some had been in the RAID, some had not. The first couple of Mb have been written and rewritten repeatedly, but there could still be some RAID blocks at the end of the disk.


parted -l

said "unrecognized disk label" after the front of the disk was overwritten with 0's. On the off chance the installer was too daft to deal with a blank disk, fdisk was used to write a blank label. parted recognized that. Tried the installer again, but still nothing - came up with the same blank partition screen, showing no disk size.

[oldfred]

If drive was set up for RAID, it has RAID meta-data that has to be removed.

Presence1960 on remove old raid setting from HD
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325650
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sdb
Also check BIOS for raid settings