Ubuntu 10.04 does not recognise XP or partitions

Boot form Ubuntu install cd and accessing to the main menu Applications→Accessories→Terminal

Please copy and paste here the result of this terminal command:

sudo fdisk -l

Thank you

fdisk: invalid option -- '1'

Usage:
 fdisk [options] <disk> change partition table
 fdisk [options] -l <disk> list partition table(s)
 fdisk -s <partition> give partition size(s) in blocks

Options:
 -b <size> sector size (512, 1024, 2048 or 4096)
 -c switch off DOS-compatible mode
 -h print help
 -u <size> give sizes in sectors instead of cylinders
 -v print version
 -C <number> specify the number of cylinders
 -H <number> specify the number of heads
 -S <number> specify the number of sectors per track

sudo fdisk -l (that is a small L at end of code)

Sorry about that, I hope this is more helpful:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32301 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1669c708

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 31447 237738296 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 31447 32302 6468208 12 Compaq diagnostics

Hi :)

Are you using the LiveCd version of Ubuntu right now? Try going up to the top taskbar and try

System - Administration - GPartEd

to see if that now agrees with the "fdisk" command. Clearly in the "fdisk" command's output we can see an unusual partition layout but crucially we can see the ntfs partition that Windows is on :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again

I think it would be best to use GPartEd (if possible) from the LiveCd session that you used to give us the "fdisk" output to set-up partitions something like this

sda1 resized a lot smaller (if the Windows is Vista then do this resizing inside Windows)
sda3 Primary Partition 8Gb file-system = ext3, this will be for the /
sda4 Extended Partition 15Gb, this contain the sda5 & sda6 partitions
 . sda5 Logical Partition = Ram or 2xRam size, "file-system" = linux-swap
 . sda6 Logical Partition to fill the remaining space, file-system = ext3, this will be for the /home
sda2 unchanged

Then use the installer icon that is on the LiveCd's desktop to install but when you get to the "Partitioning Section" choose the lowest option "Advanced" or "Manual" partitioning. This is where you "change" the partitions to set their "Mount Points" as follows

sda3 = /
sda6 = /home

Then just make sure that sad1 & sda2 are NOT ticked in the "Format?" column! Hopefully this should all work just fine now
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi,
I used the Gparted LiveCD and the "fdisk" output looks almost exactly like that from Ubuntu:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32301 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1669c708

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 31447 237738296 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 31447 32302 6468208 12 Compaq diagnostics

However, Gparted showed my hard drive as unallocated space and showed me the following under device information:

Device information

Model: ATA ST9250827AS
Size: 232.88 GiB
Path: /dev/sda

Partition table unrecognized
Heads: 255
Sector/track: 63
Cylinders: 30401
Total sectors: 488392065

I'm confused about what this means. Does it or doesn't recognise my partitions?

I'm using Windows XP, so I can't resize partitions with that. I had hoped I could just use Gparted or do this during the Ubuntu installation, which is where I encountered the problems described above.

Thanks a lot for your patience!

HI :)

I can understand why you are confused. GPartEd is a program that is included in many distros, such as Ubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE, sliTaz and many more. Then the people that made the GPartEd program decided to make their own distro & they called it Gparted. So now when anyone talks about gparted it is difficult to know if they mean the program or the distro! Grrrr!!

To reduce confusion please
1. take the Gparted Cd and hide it or throw it away.
2. put the Ubuntu Cd in the cd/dvd-drive and boot that up to our LiveCd session
3. go up to the top-taskbar and click on
System - Administration - Gparted

Now, does the program gparted see the same partitions that fdisk does?
Regards from
Tom :)

 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 31447 237738296 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 31447 32302 6468208 12 Compaq diagnostics
Note the last paragraph (/ dev/sda2), as far as I know, this chip - Recovery partition from HP - MBR change so that only the full-Partitioning can help ...

Hi

The order of the partitions on the drive is absolutely not important. GPartEd (the program) will show the order the partitions appear on the drive in the graphic in the top half of it's nice gui window while the bottom half shows a textual listing of the chronological order the partitions were made in.

Since chronology (history) does not matter the textual view can be a a bit confusing. Sadly tools like "sudo fdisk -l" only show the textual information. From the fdisk command we have to take a lot of notice of the start&end addresses to see which partitions are placed exactly where on the drive.

On the 15th i proposed this layout
sda1 resized a lot smaller
sda3 Primary Partition 8Gb file-system = ext3, for the / during install
sda4 Extended Partition 15Gb, this contain the sda5 & sda6 partitions
 . sda5 Logical Partition = Ram or 2xRam size, "file-system" = linux-swap
 . sda6 Logical Partition to fill the remaining space, file-system = ext3, this will be for the /home
sda2 unchanged

but of course the textual views will show these partitions in the order the were created so

sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4, sda5, sda6

which is not very helpful, except that we are also given the start & end addresses so we can interpret it into the graphic in our imagination.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi,
I managed to solve the problem by downloading the easeus partition manager and making a partition for Ubuntu to install to. Thanks for your help!

Congrats :))
Nicely done :)

Another great thing about linux is that there are usually so many options for how to get the result you want. Nicely found & fixed :)
Regards from
Tom :)