Installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS beta 1 x64 alongside Windows 7 doesn't show whole hard-drive [closed]

Question

I probably put too much information here, but I'm not sure where it went wrong.

I was attempting to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS beta 1 x64 alongside Windows 7. I had used Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit, but I wanted to upgrade to 64-bit, so I backed up my home folder, went into Windows 7, deleted the Ubuntu partitions and expanded my C drive. I placed the Ubuntu 12.04 files on a 4.05 GB partition of my (jailbroken) 32 GB iPod touch using the Pen Drive Universal USB installer. Unfortunately, selecting "Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop" did not recognize my ISO file, so I chose one of the options at the very bottom, I believe it went something like "Other Ubuntu (new system)" but I don't remember the exact name.

I was able to boot into the setup without a problem. I only reached a problem when I went to "Installation Type." I clicked "Install Alongside Windows" and it only allowed me to resize two partitions which total 15.7 GB. The drive selected was "SCSl1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 320.1 GB ATA WDC WD3200BEVT-7 7.2 GB I should currently have 3 partitions. One is 104MB (dell recovery), one is about 15 GB (recovery tools), and the other is about 300GB. Ubuntu noted at the bottom that 2 smaller partitions were hidden. I clicked the "advanced partitioning tool" but received Bug 939450. After going into "try Ubuntu" I was able to get the advanced partitioning tool working, but the "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7" tool still showed the same two partitions. I would like to split /dev/sda3 into 2 different partitions, which I was able to do when I was installing 11.10 using the "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7" tool, but it looks like it's trying to split /dev/sda2.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

I am guessing that your disk is marked as dynamic in Windows, gparted and the Ubuntu installer cannot resize or use dynamic marked disks, only basic disks can be resized.

You either have the option to re-install everything leaving your Windows disk as basic, resize your current dynamic disk and create a new extended partition on that free space you just created and tell Ubuntu to install there or if you can go to Windows and using the disk manager convert that partition to basic again that would be the best path (not sure if its possible though).

Answer 2

Just boot with a bootable Ubuntu 12.04 install disk-- make sure you set it up properly if you are using an alternate to CDROM method-- just placing an iso file on a usb drive is not the right way to do it. Before you go on to desktop or even after-- make sure to set up the networking- usually it will do so itself if you have a dhcp server and such otherwise specify your fixed ip address if that is the way you do it. Next when you get to the place where you are about do consider disk partitions, select, "do something else". Then go through the process of setting up normal partitions "ext4" -- first remove the existing partitions you believe are linux. Then add and then go about creating the individual partitions you need-- 7 gig for /tmp 8 gig for swap 80 gig for / and 500 gig for /home as an example. Ubuntu should be able to see all the disks- it is best to use the partition manager in Ubuntu install as it is so easy to use.