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Kazagistar
February 3rd, 2011, 11:37 PM
I am trying to install Ubuntu over a previous install, parallel with my Truecrypted windows partition, but the installer does not detect a partition table on the hard drive. However, the drop down menus "Places" sees the Linux drives, and I can browse through the files; only the installer is blind to it's existence.

oldfred
February 4th, 2011, 02:10 AM
I do not know if the Truecrypt is confusing things, but it may be just that you have used all 4 primary partitions?

Does Truecrypt tell you how to partition a drive if one partition is encrypted?

I have this in my notes from a long time ago so I do not know if it is still current:
Resizing your encrypted file system can not be done directly as of yet with Gparted as Gparted sees the encrypted partitions as unformatted space.

psusi
February 4th, 2011, 04:15 AM
This is usually due to minor corruption of the partition table. Post the output of sudo fdisk -lu.

Kazagistar
February 4th, 2011, 05:14 AM
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu /dev/sda
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 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: 0x000a9fca

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 781240949 390620443+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 781252606 1250263039 234505217 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 1219014656 1250263039 15624192 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5 781252608 791015423 4881408 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 791017472 1219010559 213996544 83 Linux

So yeah, it looks fine to me, but the installer does not detect the partition table existing at all.

psusi
February 4th, 2011, 05:26 AM
It is corrupt: sda2 overlaps sda3. Since it is a swap partition you should be ok if you just delete it. What sort of partition operations have you done lately on the drive with what tools? It would be handy to identify what broken program caused this.

Kazagistar
February 4th, 2011, 06:25 AM
Actually, all the partitions other then sda1 are expendable, so I deleted them all in fdisk, and it worked, thanks for the tip. As to what apps were used to edit it, the Ubuntu Disk Management tool created it, and possibly the Truecrypt bootloader installer edited it.