Live CD Partition Editor not recognizing HDD Partitions

[insanity54]

Hello.

I'm trying to upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid. More specifically, I'm trying to use the Intrepid live CD to completely overwrite my root partition, while keeping my /home partition intact.

I've hit a snag with the Intrepid live CD, when the installation wizard gets to the partition configuration section. The manual partition editor shows my HDD as being completely unallocated, with no partitions whatsoever.

Here is an output of "sudo fdisk -l" since the results of my googling suggest that the problem is related:


xxxx@xxxx:~$ sudo fdisk -l
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b9e5d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 48228 387391378+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda2 42004 48228 50002312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 48229 48352 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 * 48353 60801 99996592+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 1 42002 337380970+ 83 Linux
xxxx@xxxx:~$


note: This is a dual-boot system with ******* and Ubuntu 8.04.

Why can't the live CD see my partitions, and is this a bug or is it my fault?

[merlinus]

What does gparted show? Can you post a screenshot?

[insanity54]

Hi merlinus, thanks for your reply. Here is a screenshot of GParted.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/670/screenshotp.th.png (http://img241.imageshack.us/i/screenshotp.png/)

[logos34]

omitting empty partition (5)

Why can't the live CD see my partitions, and is this a bug or is it my fault?

this had been known to work:


sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sudo sfdisk --force /dev/sda

now run fdisk and/or gparted again

[insanity54]

Hi logos34 thanks for your reply.

I ran the command in the live CD session and got this:



ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sudo sfdisk --force /dev/sda
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy

This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probably a bad idea.
Umount all file systems, and swapoff all swap partitions on this disk.
Use the --no-reread flag to suppress this check.

Disk /dev/sda: 60801 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
Old situation:
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 0+ 48227 48228- 387391378+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda2 42003 48227 6225 50002312+ 83 Linux
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,0,1)
/dev/sda3 48228 48351 124 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,0,1)
/dev/sda4 * 48352 60800 12449 99996592+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,0,1)
/dev/sda5 0+ 42001 42002- 337380970+ 83 Linux
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
New situation:
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System
/dev/sda1 63 774782819 774782757 5 Extended
/dev/sda2 674778195 774782819 100004625 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 774782820 776774879 1992060 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 * 776774880 976768064 199993185 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 189 674762129 674761941 83 Linux
Successfully wrote the new partition table

Re-reading the partition table ...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy
The command to re-read the partition table failed
Reboot your system now, before using mkfs

If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1)
to zero the first 512 bytes: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1
(See fdisk(8).)
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$


I then ran GParted and there is no change.

Was that command meant to be run from my hardy installation?

**EDIT**

I forgot to add the fdisk output. Looks like the part about "omitting empty partition (5)" is gone?


xxxx@xxxx:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for xxxx:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b9e5d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 48228 387391378+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda2 42004 48228 50002312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 48229 48352 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 * 48353 60801 99996592+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 1 42002 337380970+ 83 Linux
xxxx@xxxx:~$

[logos34]

**EDIT**

I forgot to add the fdisk output. Looks like the part about "omitting empty partition (5)" is gone?


that's good, but I missed this:


/dev/sda1 1 48228 387391378+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda2 42004 48228 50002312+ 83 Linux

overlapping partitions (it's showing a primary partition inside an extended (sda1)--either that or the partition # is wrong. 'sda2' should be like sda6???)

run testdisk to fix partition table


sudo apt-get install testdisk

sudo testdisk

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step#Current_partition_table_stat us

[insanity54]

It looks like


sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sudo sfdisk --force /dev/sda

Made my ******* installation unable to boot.

At this point I think I'm going to dban and start over.

Thanks to everyone for the help.