Ubuntu 10.10 installation: Can't see HD partitions

[Snowflame]

Pretty much as the title says. I am attempting an amd64 install on a new computer that has two 1 TB Hard Drives, with Windows 7 on one of them. When booting from a Ubuntu 10.10 CD to perform the installation, it won't let me proceed because the "2.4 GB free" condition is not met.

Terminal ->
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ fdisk -l
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Yeah, nothing. GParted and Disk Utility both see absolutely nothing as well. I've tried this with several variations. Notably, at first I had the full 1 TB drive seen as "unallocated" by Windows; after the first failures, I hand-partioned this in Windows (since fsck didn't seem to do anything in Ubuntu), but it didn't matter, as Ubuntu still saw no hard drives. I even shrank the C partition slightly, thinking perhaps that 1 hard drive was misbehaving, but it didn't matter.

I'm at a loss as for what to do with just the CD available when it can't even acknowledge the hard drives. The only thing I can think of is this might be some bizarre bug in interfacing with the Motherboard so that Windows 7 can interface with it but not Ubuntu? This is a GA-X58A-UD3R. I looked in the setup BIOS options but didn't see anything particularly leap out as dangerous.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Rubi1200]

Try running this command and see if you get further:

parted /dev/sda print

Post back with what it says.

Also, see here:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html

[Snowflame]

Thanks for your reply.

I should have mentioned this before, but I also ls 'd the /dev directory. There weren't any hda# or sda# entries in it. I'm off to work right now but will double-check this is still true when I get back, but with no /dev/sda I doubt that command will tell us much useful.

Re the picture in your link, GParted, when I brought it up, didn't see the "unallocated" space, but merely saw nothing at all.

[dino99]

you might prepare your partitions with partedmagic (boot on it) before installation, then install with the "alternate" iso to select manual installation. when formatting, take note of the partitions's names (/dev/sd?) to install on it later.

Create 3 partitions:
- / : root, bootable, ext4 format, about 12 gb
- swap: about 2 gb
- /home : ext4, unlimited space (to store your data)

http://partedmagic.com/

[srs5694]

A few ideas:

• Check your BIOS for AHCI options. Changing them might get the drives recognized. OTOH, this might then cause Windows to flake out.
• Try juggling the drive cables, so that the hard disk plugs into a different SATA port on the motherboard. (Try all of them.) This might work because some motherboards use more than one hard disk controller, and sometimes one works better than the other. Again, though, Windows might flake out.
• Try another distribution or an emergency disc, like System Rescue CD or PartedMagic. Trying two or three is worthwhile. This will provide data on whether the problem is unique to Ubuntu or present in all (or at least several) Linux distributions. If the former, you're more likely to find a solution, or at least be able to install some other distribution.
• Boot the installer into live CD mode and open a Terminal window. Type "dmesg | less" and scan the entries for anything related to hard disks, SATA, or SCSI. Post excerpts if you need help interpreting the entries.
• Type "lspci", locate the entries for the disk controllers (probably identified as SATA and/or IDE), and post them here.
• You could try buying a plug-in SATA controller and using it instead of the controller built into the motherboard. This last-ditch approach may be necessary if the motherboard is new enough that it's just not yet well supported in Linux.

[Mark Phelps]

Did you do "sudo fdisk -l" ?? Unless you're running as root in the terminal (you would have a # prompt if you were), you need to do the "sudo" in from of the fdisk command for it to work.