Partitions not detected outside of Lucid

[tjk]

I have asked for help on other forums regarding my problem, with no results... hopefully someone here can help.

About a month ago I did a clean install of Kubuntu Lucid. I believe it was after that point I was unable to run other LiveCDs without some problems -- I first noticed that swap partitions failed or weren't detected. It appears that partition managers such as gparted, fdisk, etc cannot detect my partitions and interprets my hard drive as "unallocated" (this has been tested with multiple LiveCDs). However, as far as I can determine, all the LiveCDs with applications for mounting drives and HD backup ARE able to detect the partitions. Furthermore, when I am in Lucid, I am able to detect the partitions with gparted.

It's very odd... I've only found a few situations like this on the web. Could it have something to do with the GPT? (http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/) -- I really don't understand this stuff.

[gordintoronto]

Did you partition the disk with GPT fdisk? Sounds like a dangerous way to go.

[tjk]

Did you partition the disk with GPT fdisk? Sounds like a dangerous way to go.

Not that I know of... I just used the partition manager that Kubuntu uses with the LiveCD install. I know nothing about GPT, so I wouldn't know if that is used in the Kubuntu install.

[bumanie]

Don't believe that kubuntu uses GPT - Hmm...can you boot a live cd and post the output of
sudo fdisk -l interesting to see if the command line shows the partitions or not.
**That is a lower case L, not the digit one.

[tjk]

Don't believe that kubuntu uses GPT - Hmm...can you boot a live cd and post the output of interesting to see if the command line shows the partitions or not.
**That is a lower case L, not the digit one.

Here's what I get:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.9 GB, 250999111168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 184 1477948+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 12986 29809 135138780 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 30258 30516 2077148 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 185 12985 102819461+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 185 3832 29296875 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 3832 12985 73522176 83 Linux

[dino99]

its good to know what the errors are: boot on a live cd or usb stick and then check the partitions:

fsck -n /dev/sdax (where x is 1, 2, 5, 6, no need to check swap)

to repair:

fsck -y /dev/sdax

[tjk]

its good to know what the errors are: boot on a live cd or usb stick and then check the partitions:

fsck -n /dev/sdax (where x is 1, 2, 5, 6, no need to check swap)

to repair:

fsck -y /dev/sdax
Thanks dino99 for responding.

I have tried many different LiveCDs and am finding it hard to get to a command line (esp where a mounted partition is not needed) or get the fsck command recognized. I finally got a GParted LiveCD to work, but it's output said something like: "superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2...".

Do I need a very recent LiveCD to work with the ext4 format, or will all fsck commands work with this format (even though it refers to ext2)?

And with the given error message (as above), should I try the fsck -y command?

[tjk]

Can anyone help out here, please?

I'm still wondering if I may have inadvertently changed to a GPT system? Is there a way that I can determine this? I'm even having trouble backing up the partition table... I don't have a clue what's going on.