Linux Mint Forums

Good time.
I have a problem with installation linux on my hard disk. I can't install Ubuntu 9.04 and Linux Mint 7 on my hard disk because of GParted faults! Other utilities, for example, fdisk or cfdisk works without any problems. But GParted doesn't see any partitions on my hard disk. It says: "111Gb Unallocated space". And it is not the truth. Really I have 5 partitions:
20 Gb - NTFS system disk for windows
20 Gb - Ext3 system disk for linux
2 Gb - swap
48 Gb - NTFS
~20 gB - NTFS

And cfdisk application works with my disk perfectly. But GParted doesn't work (Unallocated space)
I don't know what to do. I tried to find faults on my hard disk but there is no problems with my computer and hardware.

How can I install Ubuntu or Mint? Maybe without GParted?
I'm waiting for your advices. Need help.

Best regards,
Theodore Biryukov.

Welcome to Mint
What kind of disk is it?
External - internal (SATA PATA?)
What does gparted see?
Could you possibly post a screenshoot?

I can post screenshots, but not now. Gparted simply see whole disk as unallocated space one gray rectangle.
And cfdisk works perfectly with every partition.

Maybe you have some advice, because, I think screenshots will not help.

Best regards,
Theodore Birjukov.

Hmm - can cfdisk read the entire disk - if you start if without arguments it tries to read the current partition table
Also important is it internal or external, PATA or SATA
Brand and model may help - there are a few disks that presents problems

Properties:
Hitachi HTS542512K9SA00
IDE
STORAGE\Volume\1&30a96598&0&Signature2D342D34Offset156B1FDE00Length6874FA400
STORAGE\Volume\1&30a96598&0&Signature2D342D34OffsetFEA97EC00Length80728E00
STORAGE\Volume\1&30a96598&0&Signature2D342D34Offset4E80F8200LengthB0287EC00
STORAGE\Volume\1&30a96598&0&Signature2D342D34Offset106B0A7A00Length50014E600
STORAGE\Volume\1&30a96598&0&Signature2D342D34Offset7E00Length4E80E8600

Now that's all I can say.
This is my notebook Acer Extensa 5220, 120gb, 1Gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.46 Ghz, WiFi...
That's all for this moment.

Need help.

Best regards,
Theodore Birjukov.

Run the Live Cd and post the output of "sudo fdisk -l", so we can really see what your partition situation is ....

I also had a problem installing Mint 7; it would drop out at about 88%. I solved it by running partition editor in the live disk, and deleting one partition (the one I wanted to install on, large enough for Mint), so it registered as unallocated, and then installed from the (same) live CD desktop and it went flawlessly.

I'm a not-very-guru user, but I think the Mint 7 installer has a problem in formatting a partition and then installing in one go, two separate operations seemed to cure it. Anyway, I'm on Mint 7, all I can say is persevere, it's well worth it!

owend wrote:I also had a problem installing Mint 7; it would drop out at about 88%.

That usually means the partition you were installing to was too small in the first place.

....but I think the Mint 7 installer has a problem in formatting a partition and then installing in one go

I don't think so. That sort of fault would have been reported by many users by now and it has not been. I have never had that problem and have now installed Mint on quite a few varied machines...

First let me say that I am a Linux noob (or perhaps as my spell-checker suggests - maybe a Linux boob)... but... to the best of my ability to tell, the partitioning/installing software only seems to "understand" 4 partitions on any single physical HD... either 4 primary or 3 primary and 1 extended. In any case, you are only allowed 1 extended partition on any single physical disk... and if you want to install a version of Linux into a single partition - it has to be an extended partition. I believe GRUB has a similar limitation...

Years ago I used partition magic and its bundled boot manager to put multiple OSs on a single PC but limitations with the current crop of Linux partitioning/installing/booting software seems to be no more than 4 (actual) partitions (bootable or not) on a single disk... There is a reason why you see a lot of posts regarding dual-booting a machine but almost none about multi-booting...

I too ran into this problem when I tried to install Mint 7 after I had a copy of Fedora 11 (in addition to Widows XP) on my netbook... I had enough unallocated space and only 3 partitions in use (2 primary and 1 extended)... The Mint install seemed to go OK until I tried to boot to Fedora - OOPS, it was gone from the GRUB boot menu! For a while I though is was a plot by the Mint camp to crush Fedora installs (lol!) but I now realize that is just a limitation of the installation/partitioning/booting software...

@ owen and lagagnon
Ubiquity, the installer, has a problem with partitioning - or rather multiple
The most serious is that on some machines you can't have more than nine partitions or Ubiquity silently fails at installing grub
But it seems to have problems in general too
It's rather uncommon but still common enough to constitute a problem
@ reorx
You can have almost as many partitions as you like - the "worst" I've seen is some 60 partitions
But you are right in that you can only have 4 primary partitions including the extended partition - this is the same as in Windows
In fact you can use the Windows fdisk to partition
And I'm sorry to say but this is utter nonsense

and if you want to install a version of Linux into a single partition - it has to be an extended partition.

@ fr0d0
You say gparted does not work - have you tried gparted from the menu on the live CD or do you refer only to the partitioning part of the installer
A solution for some is to use gparted to partition and then use manual partitioning in the installer as owend suggests

Husse wrote: And I'm sorry to say but this is utter nonsense

and if you want to install a version of Linux into a single partition - it has to be an extended partition.

Perhaps my spell-checker was right... I'll read more and type less...

I have tried almost all hard disk utilities on live cd and TestDisk in windows. Now I'll reboot and post information from fdisk -l.

mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2d342d34

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2562 20579233+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2563 14593 96639007+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 8574 11184 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2563 8311 46178811 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 8312 8573 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 11185 14593 27382761 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
175 heads, 32 sectors/track, 2796 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 5600 * 512 = 2867200 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2797 7831536 b W95 FAT32

I boot Mint from my usb flash disk (8 Gb). Why it displays 6 partitions on my /dev/sda ??

Yes, yes, I have used GParted from menu and as a part of installation package.