I am using Ubuntu Live CD version 9.10 32 bit. I can see my other FAT32 drives and access them in the Live session but when I try to install, the drives are unmounted (their shortcuts are removed from desktop) and I can't see any partition table, only sda which is empty, apparently… How can I install this Ubuntu on my system if I can't see partitions correctly ? I have also setup a free space on disk to be used by Linux (did it from Windows) and I can't see that either, of course..
This is my fdisk -l output:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7ab852fc
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2098176 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 263 4179 31463302+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 4180 6092 15361024 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 6093 30402 195269153 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 6093 28444 179533406+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 32.3 GB, 32346472448 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3932 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x001048b3
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 3933 31588320+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Can anyone help ?
Thanks.
Best Answer
Well, your question contains great notes on the layout of your disks, so perhaps what you really want to ask is "How can I make certain that the ubuntu installer creates partitions in the right place?"
For that, I recommend...
run "gparted" from the live cd before you begin the install. that way, you can shrink whatever existing partitions you need to shrink in order to lay out the disks to your liking. if, for some reason, you need to reboot to run chkdsk on the windows side, at least you won't have wasted time working your way half-way through the installation process.
run the install and when you get to the disk partitioning step, choose manual partitioning and instead of modifying the disk layouts at all, just select the partitions you wanted to use and tell the installer where to mount them.
for further reading and better confidence in this process, you may want to do a bit of RTFM as well. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot seems like a good place to start...