Installer not seeing partitions, ? overlapping partitions

[santanoo]

I am trying to install Ubuntu in AMD 64 machine with Windows 7 and Windows 8 Developer Preview installed.

Neither the installer or GPARTED sees any partition. However I have access to all windows and data partitions from live desktop. Removing dmraid did not work. Using Fixparts also did not correct the issue.

Below is the report from sfdisk:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo sfdisk -uS -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 91201 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System
/dev/sda1 2046 28811263 28809218 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (769,106,41)
/dev/sda2 30722048 93839359 63117312 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 * 93839360 261713919 167874560 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 261714915 1465149166 1203434252 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda5 28811264 30722047 1910784 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 4096 28811263 28807168 83 Linux
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (769,106,41)
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

[jerrrys]

Welcome to the forums santanoo :)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1854524

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142%3Au-ocqbntw_o&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=extended+partition+does+not+start+at+a+cylinder+ boundary&as_qdr=all&sa=Google+Search&lang=en&siteurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.googlubuntu.com%2F

[darkod]

What did fixparts say about the partitions positions? Did some of them looked overlapped?

The partition table looks like a big mess. Looks like you tried to add ubuntu before the windows partitions. That's not a problem, but usually you would add it at the end.

The swap partition, /dev/sda5, is supposed to be logical but it's outside the extended partition which is impossible for a logical partition. All logical partition should be inside one single extended partition.

With fixparts you can probably change sda5 to logical and that should recreate the extended partition correctly.

You can also see what parted says for the partitions, with:
sudo parted -l (small L)

PS. If the installer is not seeing partition, that means you haven't installed yet. How come there are linux partitions on the disk? Old installation?

[oldfred]

Moving Windows partitions can be a major problem. Windows has to have primary NTFS formated partitions. And Windows has in the PBR partition boot sector information on the start and size of the partition. That info has to match the partition table and if partition is moved by other than Windows tools the PBR is not updated.

Discusses Vista but same for new versions.
Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

Also:

WARNING for Windows 8 Dual-Booters
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1953674
It defaults shutdown to a hybrid hibernation/off state for fast boot
But then files may be corrupted similar to Windows 7 Hibernation:
http://superuser.com/questions/144720/missing-files-when-windows-7-returns-from-hibernate-w-dual-boot

[santanoo]

Thanks guys for the 'push'. I deleted the linux partition, moved windows, lost one of them and had to rebuild from the backup. Find this tool 'testdisk'; really helpful.