File system unknown / unformatted

Dear Class413,
                    thank you for you quick answer.
Sorry for my late answer but I have been on something else these days.
Also, sorry for not being precise in the description.
In my HP computer I have 4 partitions (which is supposedly the maximum number).
1. System partition (that's its name), active partition that allows to boot the operating system and run Windows Recovery Environment
2. C partition, with Windows 7 and all my files, partition on which the operating system was preinstalled
3. HP Tools partition, partition which allows to use the HP System Diagnostics after pressing the F2 key on the  startup
4. Recovery, partiton which allows to recover the operating system by pressing the F11 key on the startup

I have deleted partition number 1, called System partition, and I have changed the setting of partition 2 'C' to 'active'.
I have been following this:  https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks … 107#M53336 .

I have tryed from the GParted command line:

sudo parted -1

sudo fdisk -1

Both give as output: 'invalid option "1".

Have I done something wrong?

Let me know
Alberto

Dear Class413,
thanks for your answer.

I knew I was going some very stupid mistake..
Here are screenshots of the results (Sorry, but GParted saved them somewhere I couldn't find)
Imagine 1
https://ibb.co/hmW8G7

Moreover, I had two "blue screen" forced shutdown, with the error "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" which can be related to corrupted system files.. maybe these things are related.

Thanks again for your help
All the best
Alberto

Image 3:

https://ibb.co/hmW8G7

Hei Class413!
Thanks for your answer.

Gosh I need to inform myself about partition tables, I am very ignorant.

Sorry for posting two times the same image.. Unfortunately I have deleted those photos.. but I can take them again if that would be useful!

I am using an external drive to read / burn CDs as my HP (obviously) comes without a CD entry. I have burned GParted on a CD but I have no idea what software it used (no installation appeared).
The external drive is a super cheap LG CD drive reader / burner (Slim Portable DVD writer). Both the drive and the cable are brand new. Should I ask for a refund and get another one? It seems to work fine!

If I run chkdsk /F it says:
'File system is NTFS type'
It is not possible to block the current unit (sorry I am translating from Italian I have no idea how it should be in English)
It is not possible to run chkdsk as the volume is already in use with another process. Do you want to program the check of this volume at the next startup (Y/N)?

I sometimes have blue screen with fatal errors as I have already said I think, and sometimes my laptop is not shut down properly, manly due to the fact that if you close the screen without sleeping then it is impossible to interact with the laptop and the only way is to forcibly shut it down and restart it :-(

Thanks for your help so far
I have been asking on other forums too but this one seems the only one where I am getting some useful answers.

All the Best
Alberto

Dear class413,
thanks again for your answer.
chkdsk hasn't produced any error.
Moreover, to use GParted I:
1. shut down
2. start the computer with the DVD drive inserted, with GParted disk inside
3. computer loads automatically GParted
4. perform the partition

I do have a backup but the problem I presented above appeared before I touched the partition or even installed GParted..

I really don't know what to do!

Hei Class413,

So yea, as I said at the beginning, the problem is that GParted seems my C partition as 'unknown' and I can't shrink it as a consequence. As you can see in this image, the 'resize/move' button is not accessible.
Image: https://ibb.co/kRxid8
I am using the last version of GParted.
I am going to post the results of sudo parted -l and sudo fdisk -l in case you could not see them properly.

https://ibb.co/kN1by8

sudo parted -l

That's the key point. GParted doesn't work with dynamic disks, and it seems it happens with the other tools you already tried. It is a proprietary microsoft format that offers functionality similar to RAID. It appears in the windows disk management screen.  A problem is that it isn't supported by many popular and approved 3rd party software tools. To shrink the partition, you can try to use the windows partition resizing tool from the "recovery environment" I think. For this, it is better to look in the microsoft support forums or in windows-focused forums.

I wouldn't tell it is a good idea to install Linux on a "dynamic" disk. I don't know if this is possible, anyway it would at least harder to maintain the system. If you want to have both operating systems on the computer, you can consider to reformat the drive as basic disk (as far as I know, it isn't possible to just convert a drive from dynamic to basic, at least with older windows editions).

Another detail: I see in your photos from the GParted screen, a yellow triangle just after the partition name /dev/sda1. This is an indicator of problem. By clicking or right-clicking on it you can read the text of the error message concerning the problem origin.

I did some search on the question and found that installing a Linux distribution on a dynamic disk is impossible or very risky or non-functional. In theory, it is possible to install software that makes Linux understand a dynamic disk but it seems rather marginal.

There are 2 ways to go recommended (other than reformat everything),
- install Linux inside Virtualbox, or
- reconvert the drive from dynamic to basic. This isn't done by the tools included in windows installation. You need a third party software (like commercial versions of Easus etc), or follow this guide using testdisk free software (I think it is a windows version). I did never use it, so I just give the search result, at your own risk

In any case you have to keep a good backup of your content. Every partition manipulation is risky, even in case it is advertised "without loss". Murphy is evil: a small hardware problem, and you have to say "bye bye" to your data.