[SOLVED] Gparted do not recognize my partitions!

[rutz3n]

My first post =)

I have a windows and a ubuntu partition. The problem is that i formated my windows, and as usual, i got problems to reinstall grub. I tried all the ways possible (you can believe...all the normal and unusual ways described in a lot of foruns), and the only that works was to rewrite the partition table with the fdisk. I did that deleting and creating again the swap partition. Then, reinstalling grub was possible.

I got a Acer Aspire 5100. Sata partition and ATI Radeon graphics...

But now, my ubuntu is totaly messed up (a upgrade since version 6) and i need to reinstall it.

The problem is that GPARTED DO NOT RECOGNIZE MY PARTITION TABLE! fdisk does it with no problem! It shows only as one partition.

I got really import things in my disk that i cant lose, so i cant reinstall everything again formating the partitions again with gparted.

Someone have and idea, how could gparted reconize my partitions and reinstall the ubuntu???

I have already tried the alternate cd without success..

Thank you!

[SkonesMickLoud]

Are you able to see the contents of your partitions in Nautilus when you boot to the LiveCD?

[rutz3n]

Yes!!!

When i boot with the live CD, all my partitions are recognized!

But gparted still do not recognize it.....so i cant reinstall linux in the correct partition =(

Thanks for replying

[Pumalite]

Get Gparted Live CD and partition ahead of time. At install, go Manual and use the prepared partitions:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=271779
Burn the iso to disk and boot from it.

[rutz3n]

Same problem.... =(

Thanks

[Pumalite]

Use rescue cd. It has a partitioner:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

[DJ Wings]

I have the exact same problem. My partition layout is all set, but Ubuntu can't see it. I went with "Manual", and the list was blank! Where should I go from here?

[Pumalite]

Post your specs and:
sudo fdisk -lu

[DJ Wings]

Dell Inspiron E1505N, entry level specs. I've had the same partition layout installed for months (with different distros installed) with no issues.
fdisk runs into issues:
"Unable to seek on /dev/sda"
A quick Google ran into this. (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-desktop-74/unable-to-seek-on-devsda-614966/) I'm trying GPart as we speak.
Update: No luck.

[gonorrento]

Same problem here! If anyone can help I'll really appreciate.

fdisk -lu output:


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

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6bdd6bdd

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 152151614 76075776 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 152151615 261361484 54604935 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3 261361485 312576704 25607610 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4 310424058 312576704 1076323+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5 261361611 310423994 24531192 83 Linux

[gonorrento]

SOLVED! (at least for me)

I just install testdisk ( you can do it even using LiveCD; just add UNIVERSE repository ) and for my surprise there was an error in my partition table!!!

TestDisk 6.8, Data Recovery Utility, August 2007
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda - 160 GB / 149 GiB - CHS 19457 255 63
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors

1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 9470 254 63 152151552
2 P FAT32 LBA 9471 0 1 16268 254 63 109209870
3 E extended LBA 16269 0 1 19456 254 63 51215220
4 P Linux Swap 19323 1 1 19456 254 63 2152647
Space conflict between the following two partitions
3 E extended LBA 16269 0 1 19456 254 63 51215220
4 P Linux Swap 19323 1 1 19456 254 63 2152647
X extended 16269 0 2 19322 254 63 49062509
5 L Linux 16269 2 1 19322 254 63 49062384


and for my happiness testdisk solve it as a charm!

[anlag]

I've got a similar problem, in that my partition table seems to be messed up a bit. GParted only sees my entire drive as one big chunk of unallocated space. I do however have a fully working Ubuntu installation which I'm accessing now, but the Windows installation I just created now can't be booted into. It seems to me this could likely be connected to the GParted problems.

Posted earlier about the whole situation, which may contain useful background:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=884125

In short, I had Ubuntu installed and then installed WinXP on a designated space for it. To do so I had to disable ACHI in BIOS (have a SATA hard drive), and remove my swap partition (too many partitions for Winsetup). Without GParted recognizing my partitions I'm not sure how to recreate it!

As requested:

anlag@casper:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
[sudo] password for anlag:
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x38da4910

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 78109919 39054928+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 78124095 79120124 498015 83 Linux
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 83120310 390716864 153798277+ 5 Extended
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4 358715385 390716864 16000740 83 Linux
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 83120436 358699319 137789442 83 Linux


Doesn't look great does it?! Any ideas? Saw a program called testdisk which might help, but I'm somewhat cautious to jump into it without a second opinion.

[Pumalite]

TestDisk is the best Patition Table fixer around. Backup everything before you start. (if you can)

[anlag]

Okay then, had a look and think I've arrived at what to do. Testdisk finds the Windows partition as well as my three Linux partitions, hell, even the fourth one (the swap) which I had to delete before installing Windows!

Now, I previously had set it up so Win, /boot and swap were primary partitions, while /home and / were logical. For some reason testdisk now won't let me set any other partition than /home to logical so I guess I'll do that. And accept the deletion on swap ("again") - I can always recreate it from gparted when the partition tables are fixed again. I figure I can't well assign four primary partitions now, as I won't be able to make an extended one later then.

A thought, should the Windows partition be set as bootable? Does it need to, when GRUB is set to load from an own /boot partition?




TestDisk 6.8, Data Recovery Utility, August 2007
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda - 200 GB / 186 GiB - CHS 24321 255 63
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors

Warning: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 240 (NTFS) != 255 (HD)
1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4862 29 63 78109857
2 P Linux 4863 0 1 4924 254 63 996030
3 E extended 5174 0 1 24320 254 63 307596555
4 P Linux 22329 0 1 24320 254 63 32001480
Space conflict between the following two partitions
3 E extended 5174 0 1 24320 254 63 307596555
4 P Linux 22329 0 1 24320 254 63 32001480
X extended 5174 0 2 22327 254 63 275579009
5 L Linux 5174 2 1 22327 254 63 275578884




*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
[Proceed ] [ Backup ]
Try to locate partition



***


TestDisk 6.8, Data Recovery Utility, August 2007
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda - 200 GB / 186 GiB - CHS 24321 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
* HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4862 254 63 78124032
P Linux 4863 0 1 4924 254 63 996030
D Linux Swap 4925 0 1 5173 254 63 4000185
L Linux 5174 2 1 22327 254 63 275578884
P Linux 22329 0 1 24320 254 63 32001480








Structure: Ok. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type, P: list files,
Enter: to continue
EXT3 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 16 GB / 15 GiB


***

TestDisk 6.8, Data Recovery Utility, August 2007
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda - 200 GB / 186 GiB - CHS 24321 255 63

Partition Start End Size in sectors

1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4862 254 63 78124032
2 P Linux 4863 0 1 4924 254 63 996030
3 E extended LBA 4925 0 1 22328 254 63 279595260
4 P Linux 22329 0 1 24320 254 63 32001480
5 L Linux 5174 2 1 22327 254 63 275578884










[ Quit ] [Search! ] [ Write ]
Write partition structure to disk





Partition legend...

HPFS-NTFS is obviously Windows. Out of the partitions simply labelled 'Linux', the smallest (996k sectors, 512 MB) is /boot, the next one (32M sectors, 16 GB) is /, and the big ******* (276M sectors, ~130 GB) is /home.

Am absolutely dead tired now and will proceed in the morning, any input before then such as critical warnings I'm about to ruin my system... most welcome.

[DJ Wings]

gonorrento, you're awesome. Testdisk did the trick, and now I'm typing this from Ubuntu 8.04.

[rutz3n]

Finally i could fix it! Thanks GONORRENTO!!! Thanks to all!

My first approach, was using a bootable CD of windows XP, then i used the "fixboot" command. With that, the GPARTED start finding my partitions!!

But in 94% of the instalation (of Ubuntu 8.04), always occur "could not execute grub-install (hd0). This is a fatal error."

So, i tried your approach.... using TESTDISK and rewriting the partition table, everything WORKED PERFECT!!!!!

Thanks a lot, to everyone =)

[anlag]

For reference, testdisk fixed my partition tables just fine as well.

The reason I couldn't boot into Windows was something else, namely (again) its lack of default ACHI support for SATA disks.

[Diabolis]

Same problem, same solution. Thanks all.


sudo testdisk
create
proceed
partition table type: Intel
analyse
proceed
look for Vista partitions? no (because I don't have it)
Enter: to continue
Write partition table, confirm? yes