11.10 Dual Boot Problem

[M Cap]

Hey All!

Im having a problem trying to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10. In Windows, I shrank the C drive volume size to 10 GB smaller for Ubuntu. In this new space, I created a new volume but did not format it so its just 10 GBs of unallocated space. When I boot the Ubuntu CD and go to install it, the option of "installing side by side" is not there. I can only reformat the entire hard drive or "Something Else." In something else, it lists /dev/sdb, to which i am unable to make changes to, and /dev/sdb1, which shows 1004 MBs of free space. Im assuming that /dev/sdb1 is the 10 GB partition I created in Windows but why is no other partition showing up? It appears that it does not recognize the windows partition. There is also a Windows Recovery D drive that is not showing up either. So should I go ahead and install Ubuntu to this /dev/sdb1? or will this mess up windows? Im also afraid that if I do install this, GRUB wont be able to find windows 7 when trying to boot. Is there anyway to fix this problem? Should I just try an older version of Ubuntu?

Thanks in advance for the help guys! Rly cant figure this out :confused:

[darkod]

First, never create partitions for linux from windows. Even if you leave them unformatted. Besides, making a partition without format doesn't make sense. On top of that, ubuntu needs a minimum of 2 partitions for example, not one. So what good is one partition?

Boot windows and delete the newly created partition. Leave the space as unallocated.

Next, not recognizing the partitions might be if the disk was used in raid earlier. Did you? Are you running raid now?

If you are not running any raid, you can try removing the raid meta data from it by booting ubuntu in live mode and in terminal executing:
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda (or use /dev/sdb if that is the correct disk)

That should get rid of it. Let us know if that helped.

Also, double check in windows in Disk Management that you are using Basic disks, not Dynamic, and that you DO NOT have all 4 primary partitions used up.

[M Cap]

I left the partition unformatted figuring Ubuntu would format it itself during the installation and the two partitons (ill be creating three, one for /home) was something I was going to fix before i installed it. Ill double check when I get home but I have a feeling that even if i split the 10 gbs into two seperate partitions, they will both show but the Windows will not show. I have used RAID but ill have to double check to see if it has been pre set or not. Would "sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda" do anything to affect windows?

Thanks for the reply!

[darkod]

It would affect it only if you ARE running raid. In that case, that command will break your array.

Otherwise, running it has no effect on windows and it will continue to load fine. The disk probably has raid meta data leftovers which windows ignores but ubuntu doesn't. Hence it is not showing up the partitions.

[M Cap]

It turns out that in the BIOS, RAID was selected by default. So I changed it to IDE but it didnt seem to fix the problem. I also deleted the partition I had originally created so now its just 10 GBs of unallocated space. But now when I go into the Ubuntu installation, no drives are listed. Not even the one that was originally listed as 10 GBs. The weird thing is that though Im able to see AND access the drives while running Ubuntu from the cd. I was able to open txt files from the C: drive and both the Windows boot partition and Factory image drive all showed up!

[darkod]

Again, since you are not running raid, run that dmraid command on all disks.