installing ubuntu - partitioning issues

[SchitzoJoe]

Basically, I'm switching to Ubuntu from Windows. Downloaded the 8.04 iso from the Linux homepage, burned it, stuck it in, everything was going fine, until I got the partitioner screen.

Nothing was there.

I couldn't select any of the options (they were greyed out), and there were no apparent partitions.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Screenshot attached.

SOLVED.

HOW I SOLVED THIS PROBLEM: Change the jumper settings on your HDD to "Cable Select." The jumper settings are changed by moving the jumper on your HDD on the pins to a specific place, often specified on the outside of your HDD or in the manual. Thanks for everyone's help.

[louieb]

Usually when that happens its because of a non-standard partition table.

Please post your partition table. To do that open Applications>Accessories>terminal and run

sudo fdisk -l

(lowercase -L at the end)
Depending on what it shows will have some suggestions on what to do next.

[SchitzoJoe]

still nothing.

nothing shows up.

ss attached.

EDIT: I tried DBANing it last night, it didn't change anything whatsoever. Should I just download/burn the non-live CD and try that one out? Or would I have the same problem?

[Kevbert]

Have you performed a checksum on the iso file that you downloaded ? You can check this with: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ho...c50c51bd89ed24
Also have you burnt the CD at the slowest speed ? Errors do occur, so you'll need to check the disk before installing. Its one of the menu items when you boot to CD.

[SchitzoJoe]

Have you performed a checksum on the iso file that you downloaded ? You can check this with: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ho...c50c51bd89ed24
Also have you burnt the CD at the slowest speed ? Errors do occur, so you'll need to check the disk before installing. Its one of the menu items when you boot to CD.

I checked with the option at the boot menu, and it said there were no errors. Also used winMD5sum, both hashes came up the same.

[louieb]

still nothing....nothing shows up...

Wow! haven't seen fdisk do that before. The Ubuntu live CD has pretty good hardware detection. Even if the drive had no partitions it would still list the drive or a dozen or more - the fdisk command reports what it finds. Have you check the connections to the drive? Have to tried another Linux live CD.

Its about a 50 MB download I would try DSL Linux its hardware detection is based on Knoppix Linux. Both are very good at detecting hardware. But what puzzles me is its your hard drive any Linux distro should pick it up.

What kind of pc is it? What OS is currently on it?

hts3813 On a side note as long as the partition table is a standard msdos table then it should list the partitions. If its not fdisk should still report the drive and give a waring that the partition table is messed up.

[SchitzoJoe]

there is absolutely no OS running on it right now, just running a live session.

running an HP Pavilion with an AMD Athlon 2800+ XP processor ~2.1ghz, nVidia Geforce 6600GT card, 1 gig of ram, 110gb hard drive. some form of hp pavilion, can't remember the model number as of now though as i'm not on my home computer.

i'm going to try the non-live cd tomorrow night whenever i get home, i'll report back with progress.

p.s.: to get rid of my windows partition, i popped in my windows cd, deleted the windows partition, so i have like a 112gb unpartitioned space. is this a problem?

[louieb]

HP pavilion is a pretty mainstream PC. I'm almost out of things to check. Its odd that your Windows CD can see the drive and Ubuntu can't.
One more thing to look at. Go into the BIOS setup. Look for the hard drive description. Type should be set Auto and mode set to LBA.

Let us know how the text based installer worked out. Good Luck.

[wpshooter]

there is absolutely no OS running on it right now, just running a live session.

running an HP Pavilion with an AMD Athlon 2800+ XP processor ~2.1ghz, nVidia Geforce 6600GT card, 1 gig of ram, 110gb hard drive. some form of hp pavilion, can't remember the model number as of now though as i'm not on my home computer.

i'm going to try the non-live cd tomorrow night whenever i get home, i'll report back with progress.

p.s.: to get rid of my windows partition, i popped in my windows cd, deleted the windows partition, so i have like a 112gb unpartitioned space. is this a problem?

Get www.killdisk.com and WIPE that drive completely clean and I bet the Ubuntu O/S will install perfectly.

I suspect that somehow your DBAN program is not working or actually running to completion. I have seen that problem with DBAN before. Killdisk is simpler but all you need to WIPE the drive of all contents.

Good luck.

P. S. - I just noticed one of your last posts. Make sure that you can see the drive in the BIOS. If you can NOT let us know and we will discuss further.

[hts3813]

sudo fdisk - did not work with me when I tried to install on 80g disk with 3 partitions. Yet instalation went smoothly when using my older 40g drive with only two partitions. I still think the catch is with the number of partitions. I am new to linux...just sugesting.