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I'm trying to follow the guide by Luis Alvarado at Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI for installing Ubuntu 14.04 UEFI in dual boot with Windows 8.1.

I created the partitions from Windows, then rebooted, disabled SecureBoot (but leave UEFI enabled), booted Ubuntu from an USB stick in UEFI mode.

It runs fine (although in a 800x600 resolution), but when I reach the step where the installer asks for partitions, this is what I see (completely empty list of partitions):

enter image description here

I don't know how to proceed.

Maybe this can be a useful information:

root@ubuntu:~# gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 65315FB0-3173-43D4-BD21-7BB11E44E5D5
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907024613
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 6077 sectors (3.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1026047   500.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   2         1026048         1107967   40.0 MiB    FFFF  Basic data partition
   3         1107968         1370111   128.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved part
   4         1370112         5564415   2.0 GiB     2700  Basic data partition
   5         5564416      1949353983   926.9 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
   6      1949353984      3064690687   531.8 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
   7      3064690688      3883890687   390.6 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
   8      3883892736      3907022598   11.0 GiB    2700  Microsoft recovery part

Partitions 6 and 7 are the ones I created by shrinking partition 5, which is the Windows 8.1 partition.

Edit:

root@ubuntu:~# hdparm -N /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

Edit:

gparted can correctly see all the partitions, however it gives two warning at startup:

  1. The backup GPT table is not at the end of the disk, as it should be. This might mean that another operating system believes the disk is smaller.
  2. Not all of the space available to /dev/sda appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 4521 blocks) or continue with the current setting?

May these problem be relevant with the issue in the Ubuntu installer?

Community
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fferri
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  • Hello. This doesn't look like a question, but rather as a bug report. Maybe you could be able to file it. Please open a terminal, and type "ubuntu-bug hdparm" – v010dya Apr 14 '15 at 10:01
  • @Volodya: I'm asking for help, perhaps there is some workaround. I tried "ubuntu-bug hdparm" and it submitted some information, but that didn't even allow me to describe the problem, and I can't find the reported bug in launchpad – fferri Apr 14 '15 at 10:16
  • Then something went wrong. You should have the ability to give name and description of a problem – v010dya Apr 14 '15 at 10:43
  • I am short in time but the problem you discribe sounds like the problem the 14.04 installer has. If you want to install you have to choose the option 'Something else' and then do the partitioning. I did it with a live cd before using cgdisk. When you are in the installer just use the partitions you have created. If win 8 does exist in uefi mode AND the inszaller works in uefi - black grub when starting - eberything schould be fine – wstein Apr 14 '15 at 10:50
  • Or just ude 14.10 wich does not have this bug – wstein Apr 14 '15 at 10:51
  • @wstein: in this case you don't have the choice, because it skips the screen where you can select "Install alongside Windows", "Erase entire disk" or "Something else". It shows the partition list (empty) straightaway. – fferri Apr 14 '15 at 10:51
  • Oh sorry i did not got this. Then try 14.10 it worked for me like a charm yesterday – wstein Apr 14 '15 at 10:53
  • @wstein: I need Ubuntu 14.04 for a software which is supported only on 14.04 (in general, only on LTS releases) – fferri Apr 14 '15 at 10:55

2 Answers2

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Fixing the backup GPT solved the issue.

In order to fix it: run "sudo gparted", and click FIX when it reports the problem about the backup GPT and proposes to fix it).

fferri
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Chances are you have RAID support enabled in your firmware and/or in Windows. It is imperative that your RAID settings be identical in the firmware and in all your OSes!!! If I'm right and you simply "fix" the problem in Ubuntu but leave RAID enabled in your firmware and/or in Windows, you could conceivably end up with data loss. Note that RAID can be active even on single-disk setups, although it's useless with just one disk.

One way to check this is to run the Windows version of gdisk (binaries available here, although you'll have to dig down to the current version's gdisk-binaries subdirectory). Run gdisk in Windows and type v. This runs a disk check. If my hypothesis is correct, gdisk will complain about a damaged backup partition table, but the same check using gdisk in Ubuntu will make no such complaint.

Rod Smith
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