Hardware·18,997 discussions

Drive partitions not seen for installation

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My computer has two hard drives at 232GB each. Windows disk manager shows them as Disk 0, which I use for Windows XP, and has six partitions. This drive seems to be working properly and I haven’t had any problems.
The second drive, shown as Disk 1, has two primary partitions which I creaded in Gparted using its live CD. Problem is when I try to install Ubuntu, or any other Linux distro, when I get as far as the partitioning step in the installation, nothing on this drive is seen by the installer. Is there anything I can do to have this drive detected by the installer?

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Clarifications

In reply to Drive partitions not seen for installation

Clarifications

if HDD 1 has no files . . .

In reply to Drive partitions not seen for installation

and is just empty partitions

delete them so you have an unallocated HDD
and let the nix installer create the partitions at installation time

Reponse To Answer

In reply to if HDD 1 has no files . . .

Thanks much for the quick reply. Did as you suggested but it’s still the same result. I’ll keep looking and trying.

Reponse To Answer

In reply to if HDD 1 has no files . . .

Here’s a bit more to throw into the confusion pot. When nothing seemed to work I rummaged through my unsorted pile of disks and found one for Ubuntu 9.04. Booting from that disk I started the installation. And there it was, at step 3 – the partitioning table. I was able to partition the drive the way I wanted it and the install completed with no problem. Why the newer versions of Ubuntu doesn’t come up with the partitioning table is still a puzzle to me. The disks I’m using were also used to install their versions on another computer with no problem.
Will keep you updated on this mystery.

if the installer can’t see the HDD at all

In reply to Drive partitions not seen for installation

then it’s a cabling or BIOS setting problem

for E-IDE not all systems support booting from a Disk located on the slave connector of either primary or secondary channels

for SATA not all ports are considered as bootable in some BIOS versions

for a SATA: system disconnect all HDDs except the one you want to install onto
then connect it to SATA Port 0

for EIDE: disconnect all other HDDs and connect the HDD you want to install to on the primary master connector
connect the CD/DVD drive to the secondary Master connector

boot the system, enter the BIOS and check the settings for the HDD

if all looks OK
exit BIOS insert nix install CD/DVD and attempt the install

At a guess I would say

In reply to Drive partitions not seen for installation

That the Partitions you created are NTFS Partitions which the Linux Installer can not use. Linux uses a different File Table and you can not install any form of Nix onto a NTFS Partition. You need to delete the partitions and use the Linux Partitioning Tool to make the necessary Partitions for you to install into.

Remember most Nixes create 3 Partitions to install the OS and Software on the Disc unlike the Windows which installs into one.

That is of course if I am reading your question as you intended that you can see the partitions but not format or install any form of Linux to them. 😉

Col

On A Raid Controller/card?

In reply to Drive partitions not seen for installation

Sometimes if you dont see you hard drives it could be becuase if the hard drives are connected to a raid card then you might need to get the drivers for that.

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