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Trying to install ubuntu 12.04 along side windows 8 using an usb. In the Installtion Type menu where it shows the existing partitions, the menu is blank. If I click New partition table nothing happens.

How to I make the partition table visible and create a new partition for ubuntu.

The laptop is brand new and I have not created any partition for ubuntu.

thanks for any help.

msk
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  • Have you tried looking here at http://askubuntu.com/a/228069/102029 for some guidance?. To resize windows c: use installation media to boot to recovery options in order to use diskpart to resize windows partition. It is possible to use gparted from live session to do same but it is better to use windows tools for windows and linux for linux. – geezanansa May 30 '13 at 22:00

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A disk that appears to be blank in the Ubuntu installer but that you know to contain partitions generally indicates one of two issues:

  • The disk is set up for use in a motherboard-based software RAID array (aka "fake RAID") but RAID support is not active in Linux. This can happen because a disk is being re-used and was once RAIDed, because RAID is legitimately active but Linux isn't recognizing that fact, or for other reasons. If you're certain the disk should not be RAIDed, you can remove the stray data by typing sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda (substituting the device filename, if it's not /dev/sda).
  • The partition table contains errors. Some of these can actually be legitimate, but libparted (upon which the Ubuntu installer relies) is very fussy. If the disk uses the old MBR partition scheme, my FixParts utility (part of the gdisk package in Ubuntu, IIRC) can fix most such problems -- but be cautious! FixParts will fix some problems by deleting one or more partitions! If the disk uses the newer GPT scheme, you'll need to do some more thinking. My gdisk program includes a v command to analyze the disk, and this will identify some problems. If you're very lucky, launching gdisk on a GPT disk and then typing w to save the changes will fix the problem -- but don't do this without at least first verifying the partition table's contents with p. See my page on repairing GPT disks for more information.

Note that the vast majority of computers that ship with Windows 8 use GPT; however, if you installed Windows 8 yourself (including re-installing it on a computer that shipped with Windows 8), it might use either MBR or GPT.

Rod Smith
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