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cchandu2050
May 8th, 2012, 10:10 PM
i have attached the pics of gparted and ubiquity

i have currently windows xp3 and ubuntu 10.10 installed and i can use them perfectly.Iam trying to do a fresh install to ubuntu 12.o4 from live cd.i can't access my partitions normally but i can mount via mount command in terminal.
thanks

coffeecat
May 8th, 2012, 10:28 PM
The most likely reason for Gparted showing "unallocated" when you have usable partitions is an illegality in the partition table - which is usually easily fixable. Boot into Ubuntu 10.10 and post the output of:


sudo fdisk -lu

If you highlight the output with the mouse and right-click, you'll be able to copy it for pasting into your post. Please post the output between
and tags in order to retain formatting and for clarity. The simplest way of doing this is to highlight the output and then click on the http://ubuntuforums.org/images/editor/code.gif button in the message toolbar.

cchandu2050
May 8th, 2012, 10:38 PM
currently i'm on another machine i will give the output when i access it.
Thanks

cchandu2050
May 9th, 2012, 04:45 PM
the output of fdisk -lu is


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160040803840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312579695 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: 0x9f539f53

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 4096574 2048256 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 4096575 15198273 5550849+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 25192446 312576704 143692129+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4 86638608 148071104 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda5 25192448 46163967 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 46166016 67133439 10483712 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 67135488 86638591 9751552 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 148071168 199928924 25928878+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda9 199928988 251144144 25607578+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda10 251144208 312576704 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

coffeecat
May 9th, 2012, 04:59 PM
Yes, you have an illegality in your partition table, and a fairly fundamental one at that. See the figures I've highlighted in red:


the output of fdisk -lu is


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160040803840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312579695 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: 0x9f539f53

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 4096574 2048256 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 4096575 15198273 5550849+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 25192446 312576704 143692129+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4 86638608 148071104 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda5 25192448 46163967 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 46166016 67133439 10483712 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 67135488 86638591 9751552 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 148071168 199928924 25928878+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda9 199928988 251144144 25607578+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda10 251144208 312576704 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


You have a primary partition sitting inside your extended partition, which is an impossibility. The partition table is saying that sda4 is a primary because it has a partition number between 1 and 4. To be inside an extended partition, a partition must be a logical one and with a number 5 or greater.

This should be easily fixed with fixparts. Have a look here:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/

There are Linux and Windows versions available, so you could run it from Windows, Ubuntu 10.10 or even from the Ubuntu live CD. Make sure you backup all important data - you, or rather fixparts, will be editing the partition table and things could go wrong - and save a copy of the partition table as it is now with sfdisk as described there. Also, be sure to download and install fixparts and not gdisk - some people have run gdisk by mistake and dug themselves deeper, hence Rod's warning.

Out of interest, have you used a 3rd party Windows partitioning tool? This problem has the whiff of such about it. Some of the Windows partitioning tools can be remarkably cavalier with the partition table, as can the Windows installer!

EDIT: By the way, fixparts should reassign the partition numbers by renumbering the errant sda4. It might shuffle all the partition numbers from 8 upwards, or it may merely reassign sda4 to sda11 and allow you to have logicals not in numerical order. I don't know which. If it does renumber sda8 up, you need to be aware of this in case you are referencing partitions by device number rather than UUID in /etc/fstab.

cchandu2050
May 9th, 2012, 05:08 PM
i did try fix parts but i didn't know exactly what to do.i did backup my partition table

coffeecat
May 9th, 2012, 05:20 PM
i did try fix parts but i didn't know exactly what to do.i did backup my partition table

You need to set sda4 as logical. The fixparts commands for this are in the tutorial. But before you do, do you know what is on your current sda4? You have a plethora of NTFS partitions and you need to be sure that your Windows operating system is not on it. Windows can boot only from a primary partition, but your primary sda1 with the boot flag is only 2GB in size which is too small to be a Windows C: partition.

Windows is happy with data partitions being logical, so if sda4 is a data partition, changing its status to logical will be fine. If it is a Windows system partition, then you do have a problem, seeing as it's right in the middle of the extended partition.

cchandu2050
May 9th, 2012, 05:27 PM
sda2 is my windows installation and from the tutorial the command to set as logical is l(small l). thanks

cchandu2050
May 9th, 2012, 05:29 PM
i have some issues with my sda1 partition so i shrunk it to 2gb.
the only files that reside there are the windows bootloader files