[SOLVED!] LiveDVD Can't detect Windows...

[fragment137]

I'm having a very interesting problem when trying to Dual Boot Linux Mint 10 with Windows 7 Pro on my desktop PC...

I can boot to the LiveDVD Fine... (I have it installed on a USB drive VIA "Universal USB Installer".).. When I get to the boot menu I first tried selecting the regular option.

Get into the Mint desktop environment... loaded fine but oddly with no sound... Went to "Install Linux Mint", and oddly I didn't have the option to install Mint along side Windows... only to specify partitions manually or use the entire disk (The latter is not a viable option for me.)

I've tried this in compatibility mode as well, with the same result, except for some reason the sound worked... which I found to be a little odd... and I can also confirm that the HDD in question IS visible using the LiveDVD... I can browse the filesystem with no error at all... but can't detect Windows 7 Install when I try to install Mint...

The oddest part of all is that when I boot to the USB and select the "Boot from local Drive" option, It cycles me back to the Mint boot screen and won't boot to my windows installation.... Removing the USB and rebooting the computer results in regular operation of Windows...

Any insight on this would be very much appreciated. I'm not sure what could be relavent spec wise, so here's everything:

Motherboard: Intel DP55KG
CPU: Intel Core i5 750
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1.0TB
Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX260
Using Linux Mint 10-gnome-64bit DVD iso.


EDIT: Just wanted to mention that I'm currently booted into the Mint 11 RC LiveDVD and am experiencing the same problem.
FURTHER EDIT: I also don't exactly know why, but i'm currently using a GUID Partition Table on my HDD... Can anyone tell me why I would be using GPT instead of MBR? I have an eSata external drive and I had to change RAID settings in my BIOS in order to get it working... that's all I can think of and to be honest that could be a ridiculous reason...

[SimonTS]

Hi there,

Not sure - but I'll ask you to post some info that may help and will almost certainly be asked for by anyone else later,

Could you please boot to either of your Live systems - may as well go with Mint 11 I guess, then open a Terminal console, type the following commands and post the output here;-
$ sudo fdisk -l
$ sudo blkid
$ inxi -o
$ inxi -F

[fragment137]

Here's the results of those commands:

FDISK:

Code: Select all

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb094a6e7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2              13      121602   976657408    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 4051 MB, 4051697664 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 492 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3fb86fa2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         491     3943926    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

blkid:

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/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" 
/dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="C0B6F2C0B6F2B64E" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="50A2F49FA2F48B2C" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="PENDRIVE" UUID="0903-193D" TYPE="vfat"

inxi -o

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Unmounted: ID: /dev/sda1 size: 0.10G label: System Reserved uuid: C0B6F2C0B6F2B64E fs: NTFS
           ID: /dev/sda2 size: 1000.10G label: N/A uuid: 50A2F49FA2F48B2C fs: NTFS

inxi -f

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CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i5 750 (-MCP-) cache 8192 KB 
           Clock Speeds: (1) 1199.00 MHz (2) 1199.00 MHz (3) 1199.00 MHz (4) 1199.00 MHz
           CPU Flags fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts 
           acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good 
           nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 
           popcnt lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid 

I find all this interesting... I ran "GParted" just to see if it could detect anything on my HDD and all it saw was that there's a harddrive with 1TB of unallocated space... yet I can browse the drive and see all my windows files..

Something else interesting is that I can't detect my external eSATA drive at all... hmmm

[AlbertP]

fdisk says something about partition tables. I don't know what to do with it, but this may be your problem.

If it says 'use GNU parted', GParted (which runs on top of GNU parted) should work. But I don't know enough about partition tables to help with this problem.

[fragment137]

I've looked further into this and found nothing..

In Windows Disk Management, I can see my 1TB HDD (The one in question) and my external eSATA drive... both show as being partitioned as MBR? This is very confusing....

Why would Mint detect the internal drive as GPT but Windows will display it as MBR?

[AlbertP]

MBR and the partition table are very different things. The MBR is the hidden track at the beginning of the disc, where boot information is stored.
A partition table is a piece of code inside or outside the MBR (depending on the type), which defines the primary partitions of the disk.

[fragment137]

I see... What it specifically says in Windows is "Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)"

That's kind of confusing..

My greatest fear is obviously over-writing the Windows Installation on my desktop OR not being able to boot to it after installing Mint..

Oh Technology, it's such a love/hate thing

[SimonTS]

Just going back over a few previous threads that you may find useful;-
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=68562
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=54326
The one that I helped to solve was due to left-over GPT information on a drive. The other one seemed to recommend wiping the hard-drive and re-installing Windows and Mint. AFAIK GPT is only really necessary on drives bigger than 2TB (due to a limitation in 'traditional'), so why you would have it on a 1TB disk I don't know. Can you post a screen-dump of your Windows disk information screen please, just so we can see what that says.

[AlbertP]

The parted or fdisk utility is able to make a proper IBM partition table on the disk without wiping it. If I remember correctly, it's something like expert mode > create new partition table > apply (with 1-letter abbreviations which I don't remember anymore, but there's a help command).

[SimonTS]

You may find this site useful as well;-

http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/

[fragment137]

In order to save the thread from looking all spam-ish... here's a link to my disk management screendump..

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a360/ ... 052011.jpg

I can gaurantee that this HDD has never been formatted as GPT before, and to be honest really doesn't seem to be now... I know for a fact that the other drive (The "NexStar3" drive in the image) is NOT GPT...

I'm currently looking over the other threads you posted, Simon. I'll get back to you on that.

[fragment137]

Just to update, the solution using the PartedMagic Rescue CD was ingenious! Thanks very much!!!

Worked perfectly... can't say I wasn't a LITTLE sketchy about deleting the GPT portions of the drive... but still, worked perfectly! Thanks very much, Simon; and Albert as well for your input!