No partitions are visible during ubuntu installation

Question

I'm trying to dual boot ubuntu alongside windows. 8 I've tried many times with various versions, but the full hdd 500 gb is displayed with no partitions. I've created unallocated space in windows. Currently there are 4 partitions. but none is getting displayed. the output of sudo fdisk -l is below ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 8004 MB, 8004304896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 973 cylinders, total 15633408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x05f17be2

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    15632383     7815168    b  W95 FAT32
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3ffc3ff

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *   157288448   158005247      358400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       158005248   402685289   122340021    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3            1985   880490519   440244267+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb5            2048   157286399    78642176    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb6       402701416   880490519   238894552    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition table entries are not in disk order

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 02 '14 at 18:29

You are showing sdb1 & sdb2 which are primary partitions, inside the extended partition. That is not allowed.

Best to make sure you have really good backups of all data and current partition table and run fixparts to see what it suggests.

To convert a partition from primary to logical, at least one free (unallocated) sector must exist between the partition and the one that precedes it.

Fixparts - Repair broken partition tables (not overlapping issues) & delete Stray gpt data from MBR drives

http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/

First backup partition table, use your drive for sdX or sda, sdb etc.

sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sdX > parts.txt

No partitions are visible during ubuntu installation

1 Answers1