1 Topic by f3ktony (edited by f3ktony 2012-01-22 14:09:45)

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Topic: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

Hi

I don't seem to be able to find anything that covers the problem I have, either on these forums or the Internet at large.

M/b = Asus M5A88-M, hd = Seagate 500Mb SATA (see screenshot), 4Gb RAM

I bought this system 'bare', installed Mint 12 64bit which was not happy with the ATI graphics. Installed Fedora 16 32bit (formatted drive) which crashed a bit. Installed Win7 64bit (formatted drive) on 35Gb partition (Windows created 100Mb system partition). Went to install Mint again to have dual boot system but installer (custom partitioner) didn't see any partitions! No Linux CD/DVD has seen any partitions yet, not even Gparted 0.11.0-7.

Partition table appears to be gpt according to Gparted but MBR according to Windows (screenshot)!

Has anyone any idea what is going on and what I can try to get a Linux distro on this machine alongside Win7?

Tony

gparted

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

This certainly is a different problem that I haven't seen before.

Would you be able to provide the output from the following two commands?

fdisk -l -u

where one of the options is a lower case "L" and not the number one.

parted /path-to-your-device unit s print

where /path-to-your-device is something like /dev/sda.

3 Reply by f3ktony

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Re: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

Hi Curtis

Many thanks for your reply. The output from the commands are:

Disk /dev/sda: 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 / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb57d8cf0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848    72706047    36249600    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


root@PartedMagic:~# parted /dev/sda unit s print
Warning: /dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table.
However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should.
Perhaps it was corrupted -- possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT
partition tables.  Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an
msdos partition table.  Is this a GPT partition table?
Yes/No? y                                                                 
Model: ATA ST500DM002-1BC14 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start  End  Size  File system  Name  Flags

root@PartedMagic:~# parted /dev/sda unit s print
Warning: /dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table.
However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should.
Perhaps it was corrupted -- possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT
partition tables.  Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an
msdos partition table.  Is this a GPT partition table?
Yes/No? n                                                                 
Model: ATA ST500DM002-1BC14 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
root@PartedMagic:~#

I fired up Hiren's boot CD and ran PartedMagic, I ran the commands from here as well as posting this to the forum. Although the partitions are still invisible to gparted the file manager can see them and the files.

I'll try and fix the situation using info. from theselinks:
ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1746869.html - [ubuntu] No Windows partition while installing
ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1619381.html - [SOLVED] gparted can't see ntfs partitions of new win7 install
RodsBooks FixParts

Tony

http://www.quick-net.co.uk/images/partedmagic.png

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

Since the hard drive has both an MSDOS and a GPT partition table, I assume that this drive was originally used on Mac OS X.  Mac OS X uses a hybrid partitioning scheme of both these partition tables.  In the situation you describe, these partition tables are out of sync.

Following are two ways to resolve the situation:

1)  Resynchronize the two partition tables using rEFIt which is mentioned in the GParted FAQ.

2)  Choose only one of the partition tables and remove the other.

Since you instructed parted to use GPT without first resynchronizing the partition tables, you may need to manually build the two partitions using gdisk (available on the GParted Live CD).  Be sure to use the exact same starting and ending values for the partitions as you listed in post #3.

5 Reply by f3ktony

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Re: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

The drive came with a new PC without an OS installed, I very much doubt it had been near a Mac before I started mucking it about.

I have fixed the problem using gdisk following these instructions:
ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10108749&postcount=9  -  Re: gparted can't see ntfs partitions of new win7 install

It looks like when I installed Fedora 16 it created a gpt labelled disk, I didn't read the destructions regarding making a 1Mb boot partition (I would have done custom partitioning) and anaconda defaults to gpt now.
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fed … admin.html

Thanks again for your help

Best regards
Tony

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [SOLVED] - No partitions on Win7-64bit drive

'Glad to hear you were able to resolve the problem, and thank you for posting how you did it.  :-)