10.10 install not recognising hard disk

[Lusty]

Hi,

I'm having trouble getting Ubuntu installed on my desktop, I'm trying to get a dual boot going with Windows 7.

The Windows 7 install was fine and the OS is working with no problems at all. But when I try and install Ubuntu, the installer can't see any hard disks on the system. The first screen is OK where it checks for available disk space, but on the following screen there are no disks listed.

I can boot into the Live CD with no problems, and I can see the disk and create partitions with GParted, but when I go back into the install it can't see them. fdisk -l can see them as well:


sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 12796 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 12796 13840 8388608 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 13840 30516 133949440 83 Linux
I tried using the all_generic_ide option as well because I saw that in another post but it didn't help. I'm not really sure where to go from here, I've looked in the BIOS and there's very few options relating to the HDD, and none of them seem relevant. There's no RAID configuration or anything weird like that.

The machine is an AMD 64 with a Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI motherboard. The HDD is a 250GB SATA2. The disk seems fine, and I've verified the install DVD as well, it seems to be OK (I tried both the 32 and 64 bit installers).

Anyone got any ideas?

Edit - here's a screenshot:

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4483/screenshotinstall.th.png (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/screenshotinstall.png/)

[Lusty]

Excuse the bump.

[coffeecat]

This appears to be a problem:



sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 12796 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 12796 13840 8388608 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 13840 30516 133949440 83 Linux


The partition /dev/sda4 is showing as extending beyond the end of the physical disk. This is because of an error in the partition table. When this happens, parted based GUI software does not show anything on the disk. How did you create the partitions sda3 and sda4?

A couple of comments. The output of 'sudo fdisk -lu' is better than 'sudo fdisk -l', showing sectors rather than cylinders. Post the output of 'sudo fdisk -lu' to be sure the problem is what it seems, although I should imagine it will merely confirm it.

The second comment is that you have made two Linux primary partitions and you now have your total allowed complement of four primary partitions. It would be better to leave sda1 and sda2 as they are, and make an extended partition in the space now occupied by sda3 and sda4. Then you would be able to create as many logical partitions within the extended as you might want. Linux will happily boot from a logical partition and you could also make a logical NTFS data partition (should you want) to share data between Windows and Linux. Windows would see this as D: or E: or whatever.

[Lusty]

Thanks for the reply. Partitions three and four were created using gparted from the Live CD. I should point out that I had the problem before I created those partitions. Here's fdisk -lu:


sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 206848 205557759 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 205557760 222334975 8388608 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 222334976 490233855 133949440 83 Linux
In fact, I just deleted the two partitions and got the same problem, now it looks like this:


sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 206848 205557759 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

[coffeecat]

fdisk -lu showed that, in fact, sda4 did not extend beyond the end of the physical disk:



sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 206848 205557759 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 205557760 222334975 8388608 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 222334976 490233855 133949440 83 Linux
I wouldn't have expected Gparted to make such an error in writing to the partition table anyway, so it's interesting that fdisk -lu showed that this was not the problem.


I just deleted the two partitions and got the same problem, now it looks like this:


sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xffffffff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 206848 205557759 102675456 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.


That 'does not end on cylinder boundary' message is not always a practical issue. Did you create the NTFS partitions with the Windows installer? And when you say you still have the same problem, do you mean you still get what you posted in the image in your first post? At what stage of the installer was that? Did you choose the manual option at the partitioning stage? What happens if you open Gparted in the live session? What do you see in Gparted with just sda1 and sda2 now?

[Lusty]

Did you create the NTFS partitions with the Windows installer? Yes. I originally had a Windows 7 install on this box, and I started again with a fresh install. Using the Windows 7 install disk I deleted the original NTFS partition (that originally took up the entire HD) and created a new one.


And when you say you still have the same problem, do you mean you still get what you posted in the image in your first post?Yes, exactly the same problem.


At what stage of the installer was that?If I run the installer from within the Live CD, it's the third screen:


Welcome/Select language
Preparing to install Ubuntu (the screen with the 3 green ticks and the 2 checkboxes)
The screenshot from my OP


Did you choose the manual option at the partitioning stage?I don't seem to get that option.


What happens if you open Gparted in the live session? What do you see in Gparted with just sda1 and sda2 now? Gparted seems to work fine. I can create and delete partitions to my hearts content. Here's what it looks like:

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4494/screenshotdevsdagpartedi.th.png (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/screenshotdevsdagpartedi.png/)
http://img695.imageshack.us/i/screenshotdevsdagpartedi.png/

[coffeecat]

If I run the installer from within the Live CD, it's the third screen:


Welcome/Select language
Preparing to install Ubuntu (the screen with the 3 green ticks and the 2 checkboxes)
The screenshot from my OP

Curious. I was going to suggest that you prepare your partitions with Gparted before you start the installer and then choose the manual partitioning option in the installer - which comes after the three green tick screen that you describe. But it sounds as though you won't be able to get that far - and you seem to have tried that already anyway. To be honest, I'm puzzled. Gparted is happy but the screenshot you posted in your OP suggests that the installer is not because it can't make out your partitions. Which is odd, because I thought that the installer used the same parted backend as Gparted.

I'll pm a couple of people and get some more opinions on this. I might be missing something - I've not see this problem before. Hang in there. :)

[Lusty]

Thanks,

What strikes me as odd is that the screen with the green ticks (see screenshot) detects that there is 2.6Gb of free space available, so at least one stage of the installer detects the HD. It's just the next screen that doesn't.

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3116/screenshotvz.th.png (http://img440.imageshack.us/i/screenshotvz.png/)

[coffeecat]

What strikes me as odd is that the screen with the green ticks (see screenshot) detects that there is 2.6Gb of free space available, so at least one stage of the installer detects the HD.

From what I remember that's just a standard message. It hasn't detected anything; it's just telling you that you need at least 2.6GB for an installation - which would be incredibly tight.

I've had a reply from one of my forum member contacts who has been following this thread anyway. He suggests two things. You could try installing from the alternate CD and see if you get better luck. If you don't know about it, the alternate CD is like a trip back in time with a text-only installer, but it does have certain advantages and features not on the live CD. Perhaps whatever bug is afflicting the graphical installer (for bug it must be) won't affect the alternate CD. Download here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/alternative-download#alternate

You could either use Gparted on the live CD to create your partitions in the unallocated space and then boot up the alternate CD, or I'm sure you can create partitions with the alternate CD.

The other suggestion is to run:


sudo sfdisk -VAlthough that may just grumble about the cylinder boundaries. It does on mine even though Windows 7, various versions of Ubuntu and the live CD seem to work OK for me despite alleged cylinder boundary irregularities.

In the meantime I'll try to see if there are any relevant bug reports on Launchpad. Someone must have seen and reported this.

[Lusty]

Thanks, I'll try the alternative CD and report back.

As for your other suggestion:


sudo sfdisk -V
Warning: partition 1 does not end at a cylinder boundary


You were right...

[Lusty]

OK, same error with the alternative CD. #You get to a page titled:

[!!] Patition Disks

But there's no disks or partitions listed.

[EdWh]

:confused
Hi All, From EdWh
I have a similiar problem.
GA-x58A-UD3R ver 2.0
Intel i7 quad 4 at 3.06 mhz.
Ddr 3 at 1066 mhz.
WD 1tb sata 3 6gb.

My problem is that I have split the Hdd in two at about 495 gb each. I have Win 7 installed fine and running. I am installing on the AHIC interface plugged into the Sata 3,6gb port and Ubuntu 10-10 does not see Hdd. I plugged in a 4gb thumb drive and it does see that. I downloaded a new 10-10 cd hoping for a new kernel but did not help.
Now to really confuse you, I have another drive exactly the same and partitioned as with the first by Acronis Disk Managar. This drive has Ubuntu 10-10 and Win XP installed and running fine, the only differance is both system installed under IDE and not AHCI.
This motherboard has two Sata 3 6gb conrollers running on a Marvell chip which has no problems or Win 7 would not have installed. It appears to me that it may be a Kernel problem not having proper drivers but if so where do I get a good kernel and what version and how do I incorporate it into install?? Need a Guru I am afraid on this one?? Have a post on Gigabyte forum also. Note: I am not a guru do very little command line and so not usually need it.
Thanks. EdWh

[coffeecat]

OK, same error with the alternative CD. #You get to a page titled:

[!!] Patition Disks

But there's no disks or partitions listed.

Very odd. I'm afraid my search of Launchpad didn't turn up anything, except one from someone who had a RAID with the release candidate of Maverick, but no one else joined in. You don't seem to have RAID? Am I correct?

I really am nearly out of ideas. My other contact suggested running a chkdsk in Windows. Wouldn't do any harm I guess.

Idea #1: Try with the 10.04 disc. There were a few changes to the Ubiquity installer in 10.10, so it would be interesting to see if 10.04 can handle it better. If you manage to get 10.04 installed you could at least upgrade to 10.10 with the Update Manager. Bit of a roundabout way of doing things, but there you go.

Idea #2: It's somewhat radical and it may or may not work. I'm theorising here that something in the partition table is confusing the Ubiquity installer. You would need to reinstall Windows by first creating a new partition table with Gparted - this would effectively wipe out Windows. Then make a NTFS partition also with Gparted and finally install Windows to the NTFS partition without letting it create any partitions of its own. One advantage of this is that you restrict Windows 7 to just one partition. It'll be quite happy. This is how I installed W7 from a retail disc - by creating my NTFS C: partition with Gparted. It runs just fine.

@EdWh, please start your own thread for what seems to be a different problem. Helping both you and the OP in the one thread will merely confuse an already confusing issue.

[EdWh]

From - EdWh :confused:
Yes I agree I did start a new thread but do not know how to tell you to get there from here but when I saw how it was added to this post, I knew it could be a problem. Will try the 10.04 I have a cd for it. I really do not think it has anything to do with partition table. And really do not need check disk as it only checks windows ntfs not ext 3 and I ran check disk on new Win install so know it is ok. I point thr Gparted at correct partition and format before install install when i:KSt can see the disk and it has never complained about Acronis formating. I went to more trouble than you would believe just to get Win 7 on here so would go with another disk before I will lose this one. Thanks for the help. EdWh

[EdWh]

Hi Coffeecat,

Please see my post under (Ubuntu EdWh). Required Marvell chipset drivers are not in Ubuntu 10-10 or 10-04. Needs to be put in Kernel. EdWh. Thanks. :(

[coffeecat]

@Lusty, I've gone through the thread again and I've noticed something else odd. You say that while using the installer, immediately after the screen with the green ticks (in your post #8) you get the screen you posted in your OP. Do I read you right? There should be an intermediate screen - see my screenshot. Mine is from the Natty Alpha installer but I'm fairly sure it's the same in Maverick/10.10.

Questions.

Do you get that intermediate screen?

If you do, did you choose the default choice - "Install alongside other operating systems"?

If so, have you tried the third choice - "manually - advanced"?

If you are getting the screen you posted in your OP after the screen I've posted, there's still something wrong. There are usability problems - serious design flaws - with the install alongside, but it should show you the partitions on the drive. Nevertheless, it would be worth trying the manual option.

[Lusty]

I'm not seeing the intermediate screen in your screen shot. The 3 steps I listed earlier in the thread are accurate, I can screen cap them if you want to be absolutely clear.

To answer your earlier question as well, I don't have RAID. There's only one physical disk in the machine, it is SATA 2 though if that makes a difference. Again though I don't think there's anything wrong with the disk setup, it's working fine with Windows 7 and the Ubuntu Live CD. It might be worth me tryng to get hold of a different distribution of Linux just to see if I get the same problem.

I have tried the 10.04 install and I get the same problem, although it looks slightly different:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/6660/screenshotinstallk.th.png (http://img524.imageshack.us/i/screenshotinstallk.png/)

So does the fact that I'm missing an install step give us a lead? I've tried a whole bunch of different CDs with the same result (Desktop 32 bit, Desktop 64 bit, the alternative CD and the 10.04 CD), and I've verified all the disks, so I think they're fine. I know Ubuntu is free but it's costing me a small fortune in blank disks so far ;)

Recreating the partition tables is an option, it's a fairly fresh Windows install so I wouldn't mind wiping it. But it's a slight pain so I'd rather we made that a last resort.

[coffeecat]

I have to say that your perseverance and patience is admirable. I salute you for it! :) Many people would have given up long before this and slunk away muttering dark thoughts about Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular.

Anyway, thanks for the clarifications. Very intriguing. SATA2 is not a problem. The fact that you get the same in 10.04 (similar - the installer design is a little different), that I don't recall any threads about this (there have been similar, but not specifically the same), and that I couldn't find any relevant Launchpad bugs (not any coherent ones anyway) suggests that the problem lies either with your hardware or your partition table. I emphasise 'suggests'.

I understand your reticence to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows. Yes, a last resort.

A thought: do you have a spare SATA drive that you don't mind reformatting? If you do, replace your HD with it and reformat it with two empty NTFS partitions similar to what you have now. Now run the installer. Do you get the same problem? If you do, then that suggests some really obscure problem with your computer BIOS/ACPI/somethingorother. :-k If not, then it makes a partition table problem on the current drive more likely. Or perhaps some weird and obscure problem with the HD firmware.

As far as other distros are concerned, why not? Fedora, Opensuse, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS and Mepis come to mind as good ones with user-friendly installers. PCLinuxOS is probably the friendiest. Watch the Fedora one though. Give it half a chance and it will create a separate boot partition and an LVM partition for itself. Plenty of people prefer both, but Fedora does have a habit of imposing its devs' preferences on its users. I'd suggest not bothering with Mint. Excellent distro, but based on Ubuntu with the same installer redecorated in a tasteful Minty green.

[Rubi1200]

I hope coffeecat won't mind me jumping in here.

I have seen situations where even though the user did not have/use RAID that somehow RAID metadata happened to be on the disk.

Check this link and run the command from a LiveCD:
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9447593&postcount=3

This is really a long shot, but at this stage I think it is worth trying.

The command on its own does nothing, it just looks for metadata and then offers you the chance to remove it.

[coffeecat]

I hope coffeecat won't mind me jumping in here.

Not at all. :)


I have seen situations where even though the user did not have/use RAID that somehow RAID metadata happened to be on the disk.

Check this link and run the command from a LiveCD:
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9447593&postcount=3

Aha! The one vaguely-relevant hit on Launchpad that I found was this:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/partman-auto-raid/+bug/643175

One of those rare threads that tell you everything in the title. I didn't bother to post it when Lusty said that RAID wasn't involved, but perhaps I should have done. I shall watch with interest.

[Quackers]

Just one other notion. Is the hard drive plugged in to the first sata port?

[Quackers]

Having read the thread again, I'm personally not 100% happy with the outputs for the partition arrangement. These programs don't usually make mistakes of that kind, but, it seems that one of them has done.
To confirm your overall disc setup can you please go to the site below and download the boot script to your DESKTOP and then open up a terminal (Applications > Accessories > terminal) and run


sudo bash ~/Desktop/boot_info_script*.sh

This will produce a results.txt file on your desktop. Please copy the contents of that file and paste them in your next post between CODE tags. For CODE tags click on New Reply (not quick reply)and then click on the # symbol in the toolbar.
This will give a full overview of your current system.
Thanks.

http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/

EDIT I also see that your disk identifier is 0xffffffff. This is, it seems, a flag of some kind of error state existing. It often involves RAID or a damaged file system or partition issue.

[Lusty]

I hope coffeecat won't mind me jumping in here.

I have seen situations where even though the user did not have/use RAID that somehow RAID metadata happened to be on the disk.

Check this link and run the command from a LiveCD:
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9447593&postcount=3

This is really a long shot, but at this stage I think it is worth trying.

The command on its own does nothing, it just looks for metadata and then offers you the chance to remove it.

That was it! Bizarre, I can't see how that happened, I've had this drive since new and have never used it in a RAID setup.

Thanks for the answer, and thanks everyone else for your help, especially coffeecat for persevering!

I'll mark this as solved when I work out how...

[coffeecat]

I'll mark this as solved when I work out how...

I'm glad you've found the root of the problem. Let us know how you get on. I've found this thread most intriguing. Congratulations to Quackers and Rubi1200 for the RAID and disk identifier leads.

[Rubi1200]

You are more than welcome Lusty for the help :)

An interesting learning experience for us all.

[Quackers]

Me too :-) I've spent much time scratching my head!

[coffeecat]

A question for m'learned friends. Right at the beginning of the thread 'fdisk -l' suggested that there was the old partition extending beyond the end of the disk boundary problem, but this was not confirmed by 'fdsik -lu' Normally it's the other way around - fdisk -lu reveals the problem; fdisk -l doesn't. Do you think the seeming misinformation from fdisk -l is related to the vestiges of RAID information in the partition table?

[lift_test]

Thanks, I'll try the alternative CD and report back.

As for your other suggestion:


sudo sfdisk -V
Warning: partition 1 does not end at a cylinder boundary


You were right...

I suspect you'll have the same problem with the alternate instal CD. I have a similar problem and the alternate didn't work for me. I suspect it's something to do with the allocation table not being exactly as the latest distro expects it to be. Hope I'm wrong, please let us know how it goes.

[Quackers]

A question for m'learned friends. Right at the beginning of the thread 'fdisk -l' suggested that there was the old partition extending beyond the end of the disk boundary problem, but this was not confirmed by 'fdsik -lu' Normally it's the other way around - fdisk -lu reveals the problem; fdisk -l doesn't. Do you think the seeming misinformation from fdisk -l is related to the vestiges of RAID information in the partition table?

All I can assume (dangerously) is that it did have something to do with it. Still odd though.

[dino99]

in case of some weird raid:

sudo dmraid -rE

[albrt741]

I hope coffeecat won't mind me jumping in here.

I have seen situations where even though the user did not have/use RAID that somehow RAID metadata happened to be on the disk.

Check this link and run the command from a LiveCD:
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9447593&postcount=3

This is really a long shot, but at this stage I think it is worth trying.

The command on its own does nothing, it just looks for metadata and then offers you the chance to remove it.

Thank you very much. It worked for me too!

Alberto

[albrt741]

I hope coffeecat won't mind me jumping in here.

I have seen situations where even though the user did not have/use RAID that somehow RAID metadata happened to be on the disk.

Check this link and run the command from a LiveCD:
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9447593&postcount=3

This is really a long shot, but at this stage I think it is worth trying.

The command on its own does nothing, it just looks for metadata and then offers you the chance to remove it.

Thank you very much, it worked for me too!

Alberto

[Rubi1200]

Thank you very much, it worked for me too!

Alberto
You are more than welcome :)

Glad it worked out for you.