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I know this has been asked and discussed a million times, but to be honest the more I look around for solutions, the more confused I'm getting about it. I partitioned my HDD, created a bootable USB, and the installer just doesn't detect Win7. I wish I could give more information, but I feel like I've tried so many things and I simply can't think of what else to say. =/ I figured you guys could just walk me through it seeing as I can't seem to get it on my own. Please and thanks.

EDIT: I should mention that I've installed Ubuntu on this same machine before. No hardware has changed, but a while ago I ended up formatting my drive and had to reinstall Windows 7. When I installed Ubuntu last time, I ran into no issues. The install went incredibly smooth compared to this. To my knowledge, the software on it currently is also exactly the same. I simply have no clue where to even start at this point.

UPDATE: I've stumbled upon the disks menu. Not sure how I didn't think of this before. Anyways, it's showing the partitions there just fine. First 2 are Windows parts. System reserve and the rest of the Windows files respectively. The 3rd one is empty and formatted as HPFS/NTFS.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l -u /dev/sda

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, total 1953525168 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: 0x7d43f9bd

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848  1035026431   517409792    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3      1035026432  1953519615   459246592    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Robert
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  • Is Windows 7 using a dynamic disk? It may also be that Windows is hibernating or needs chkdsk. Partition errors are usually the main cause for this problem. Here are most of the reason why Ubuntu won't detect Windows installation. It might be worth a read – BiggJJ Feb 14 '15 at 10:46

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If your Windows partition is encrypted for example then it will not see it most likely. Open a terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+t and type sudo os-prober This will try to detect installed operating systems on the hard drive. Next you could open GParted from the menu and see if it detects Windows, It should be a NTFS partition, take note of the name, should be something like sda. Go back to a Terminal and type sudo mount /dev/"name of Windows partition here" EX: sudo mount/dev/sda1.

Hopefully this will mount your Windows partition. If it still does not detect windows for the install along side option but Gparted does, Then you can choose the "something else option and manually partition Ubuntu then install. Please note that you may have to reduce or split the Windows partition to make free space to play with.

Mudit Kapil
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Krea
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  • I'll try all that, but while I'm right here with my mind on it, I tried the "something else" option. It shows my HDD as completely empty.

    EDIT: Neither detects Windows. It's weird because I can boot it just fine from my BIOS menu. However, it doesn't give me the option without going into my BIOS menu like it did the previous time.

     – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 11:03
  • Well, as much as I'd rather not post a new comment, I can't edit my previous one. GParted didn't detect Windows, as I stated. Here's the issue: GParted shows my HDD as dev/sda. 913GB unallocated. Upon using the terminal command, I get nothing. I tried the suggested command that was on the page linked to me above. # parted /dev/sda print does nothing. # fdisk -lu /dev/sda does nothing. I tried preceding both with sudo. Nothing. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 11:17
  • REALLY sorry about the multiple comments, but I was booting Ubuntu Live as UEFI before. I now did so normally (Probably not the right terminology.) and the first command you suggested to me now works. GParted still doesn't detect anything, unfortunately. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 11:34
  • Quite odd, What do you see when you turn your computer on? You say you open BIOS and then boot into windows? – Krea Feb 14 '15 at 11:43
  • I turn it on and if I have the USB with Ubuntu on it plugged in, it goes straight to asking if I want to try, install, etc. After giving that short 10 seconds to open the BIOS, anyway. From there I can select either. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 11:59
  • I would like to Refer you to this – Krea Feb 14 '15 at 12:07
  • I'm not sure if it was a typo but the command was fdisk -l -u /dev/sda And you say nothing happened? You may want to try the rebuild partition table option in gparted and try your install again. I would suggest using the 'Try Ubuntu' option and use gparted from the working trial. – BiggJJ Feb 14 '15 at 12:08
  • During a live session click install and then click something else, Does Windows show up at all in there? – Krea Feb 14 '15 at 12:10
  • Sure doesn't, Krea. Bigg, it wasn't a typo. I typed what was highlighted. My bad. I'll try it the proper way. Also, I've been doing all of this from the Try... option. Installing it is what I'm trying to do. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 12:25
  • There is a lot we can ask and suggest but most of that can be found in the link i provided. For example you could boot into windows and do a proper shutdown and go back to installing Ubuntu and it may work, There is so much of "why" This is occurring and like i said most suggestions are here – Krea Feb 14 '15 at 12:30
  • NOW we're getting somewhere! Check my original question. I'll edit in what popped up. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 12:32
  • Nope. I did all that. Disabled hibernation and paging. Shut down. Booted up to Windows. Restarted to Ubuntu. I did a chkdsk in the cmd window. The disk is a basic disk. Checked it over and over. It's all shrunk down. I've checked that list of solutions a million times. I suppose I'll just deal with Windows. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 13:11
  • Not sure why I didn't think this through. Probably not enough sleep. Anyway, I used FixParts to remove the GPT and now it's all good. Sorry for any trouble, but thanks for your patience. – Robert Feb 14 '15 at 13:51